Seismic Oceanography as a Tool to Monitor Climate Change

Paper: ISSN 1027-6343
Online: ISSN 1607-7954
ISSUE 35, JUNE 2011
AVAILABLE ON-LINE AT www.the-eggs.org
Seismic Oceanography as a Tool
to Monitor Climate Change
Scientists heating up conference
hall at EGU general assembly
EDUCATION: The resourceful
physics teacher
THE EGGS | ISSUE 35 | JUNE 2011
EDITORS
Managing Editor: Kostas Kourtidis
Department of Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering
Demokritus University of Thrace
Vas. Sofias 12, GR-67100 Xanthi, Greece
tel. +30-25410-79383, fax. +30-25410-79379
email: [email protected]
Biogeosciences: Jean-Pierre Gattuso
Laboratoire d’Oceanographie de Villefranche, UMR 7093 CNRSUPMC
B. P. 28, F-06234 Villefranche-sur-mer Cedex France
tel. +33-(0)493763859, fax. +33-(0)493763834
email: [email protected]
Atmospheric Sciences: Hans Xiang-Yu Huang
Danish Meteorological Institute, Lyngbyvej 100, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
tel. +45-39157423, fax. +45-39157460
e-mail: [email protected]
Climate: Yu Shaocai
Atmospheric Sciences Modeling Division (E243-01), National
Exposure Research Laboratory U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency
RTP, NC 27711, USA
tel. +1-919-541-0362, fax. +1-919-541-1379
e-mail: [email protected]
GENERAL CONTACT
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EGU News
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Seismic Oceanography as a Tool
to Monitor Climate Change
9
Scientists heating up conference
hall at EGU general assembly
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EDUCATION: The resourceful
physics teacher
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COMMENT and
RESPONSE TO COMMENT
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News
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Journal watch
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Education
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New books
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Events
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Web Watch
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Cover photo: Lava flow into sea, Image credit: Martin Mergili, BOKU University, Vienna - Austria.
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THE EGGS
2
EGU General Assembly 2011
short report
The EGU General Assembly 2011 (Vienna, 3-8 April, 2011)
was again a great success with 4,333 oral and 8,439 poster
presentations in a dozen union wide and 520 disciplinary sessions.
The scientific programme included Union Symposia, Interdivision Sessions, Educational and Outreach Symposia, as
well as oral and poster sessions on disciplinary and interdisciplinary topics covering the full spectrum of the geosciences
and the space and planetary sciences. Furthermore, Key Note
and Medal Lectures, Great Debates, Short Courses, Union
Masterclasses, Townhall Meetings, and Splinter Meetings
completed the overall programme.
At the conference 10,725 scientists from 96 countries participated (of which 28% students), 15,000 copies of EGU Today were distributed, the media presence and reporting was
again a success, and we had thousands of visits to the webstreams as well as to the EGU 2011 blog.
We thank all of you very much for your attendance and your
active contribution to this great event. We would be pleased to
welcome you back at the EGU General Assembly 2012, 22–27
April 2012, Vienna, Austria.
EGU Office
Perspectives for the Future of Hydrology
in a Changing Environment
short report
Jim Dooge was also an active participant in EGU activities. He published his “Linear Theory of Hydrological Systems”
(Dooge, 2003) with EGU, was always present at EGU meetings and was a strong supporter of the HESS journal. He received the first Dalton medal of EGU in 1998 and gave his
last speech “Bringing it all together” during the EGU general
assembly of 2004, which he himself called his “swan song”.
Jim Dooge sadly passed away on August 20, 2010, at the age
of 88. To commemorate his immense contribution to EGU, a Memorial Session was organised at the 2011 EGU General Assembly in Vienna. The symposium, titled “Perspectives for the Future
of Hydrology in a Changing Environment - Memorial Session in
Honour of Professor Jim Dooge” was convened by the outgoing
president of the Division on Hydrological Sciences of EGU, Alberto Montanari, and the incoming president Gerrit de Rooij. The first
part was devoted to scientific talks that were delivered by Tissa
Illangasekare (Colorado School of Mines), Michael Roderick (The
Australian National University), Suresh Rao (Purdue University)
and George Kuczera (University of Newcastle).
The second part of the session was dedicated to the memorial talks that were delivered by close friends of Jim Dooge.
The audience included members of the Dooge family, and in
particular Dooge’s daughter Dara. Conveners were also most
honoured to welcome His Excellence Mr. James Brennan, Irish
Ambassador to the Republic of Austria. After the welcome to
the audience by the EGU President, Don Dingwell, memorial talks were delivered by Philip O’Kane (University College
Cork), Ezio Todini (University of Bologna), Arne Richter (former
EGU Executive Secretary), Michael Bruen (University College
Dublin) and Hubert H.G. Savenije (Editor of HESS and Technical University Delft). Finally the session was closed with touching words by Dara Dooge, who expressed the feeling that Jim
Dooge was among the audience during the whole session.
Below the talk by Dr. Arne Richter.
The HS 2011 focus session (Wien, 6 April 2011) of the recent General Assembly of EGU was dedicated to the memory
of Professor James (Jim) Dooge.
In line with the ideas and vision of Jim Dooge, this focus
session was dedicated to hydrological change. At the start
of the third millennium, population pressures and changes
in weather patterns and climate precipitated a water crisis in
various part of the world, with excesses, shortages or pollution
of fresh water leading to humanitarian and ecological problems. Management and stewardship of fresh water stocks and
fluxes is destined to remain one of the most pressing issues
for humanity and hydrology will be increasingly called upon to
propose long lasting solutions in the face of climate variability,
which is still poorly understood, and changing population dynamics. Improved hydrological understanding and modelling
are needed, as well as a pragmatic transfer of new knowledge
to policy makers, land and water use authorities, and other
stakeholders. This session aimed to bring together visions
for the future of hydrology, by discussing new ideas and approaches as well as social and economical impacts.
A short note from Alberto Montanari
James (Jim) Dooge was a former Irish minister of foreign
affairs who is very known in EGU as one of the most famous
European hydrologists of the previous century. He was one of
hydrology’s pioneers, and a father of linear theory in hydrology. He defined catchments as “complex systems with some
degree of organisation” (Dooge, 1986), and always tried to
find the laws behind the simple behaviour that these systems
sometimes demonstrate (Dooge, 1997). His last paper was
“Bringing it all together” (Dooge, 2005), which was the first paper to be published in the new open-access Hydrology and
Earth System Sciences (HESS) (http://www.hydrol-earth-systsci.net/9/3/2005/hess-9-3-2005.html).
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Memorial Session in Honour of Jim Dooge: Jim Dooge and the
EGS/EGU
more recently established colleagues. He always was listening
carefully and with great respect with regard to their opinion,
and his discussions were always gentle, reassuring, in partnership and “at eye level”, paired by his warm and sensitive
personality. In this way, Jim became a real friend and the role
model for a whole generation of hydrologists!
In my personal discussions with Jim about the well-being
of our Society he turned out to be a real inspirational entrepreneur - listening very carefully to my arguments and ideas, putting his fingers gently into the sore points, and discussing what
was missing and what to be added and how. He was a best
pal with regard to establishing a strong European Hydrology
represented within the EGS/EGU. In this way I would like to
say: “Thank you, Jim, for your active support and long-lasting
friendship. You will always be My Star on the “Firmament of
Fame of Geosciences”!
Dear Mrs. Dara Dooge,
Dear Excellence Mr. James Brennan,
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
When I was invited in 1986/87 to organize the European
Geophysical Society (EGS), the entire field of hydrology was
represented by only one “Open Session on Hydrology” at its
General Assemblies. We quickly changed this by adding topical sessions, by upgrading “Hydrology” to a Section and, later
on, to a Division, and by launching the journal “Hydrology and
Earth System Sciences (HESS)”. However, all this was only
possible due to the enthusiastic support of the many well established and sincerely engaged hydrologists - many of them
sitting in the audience to-day - and by the good-will of the “gurus in hydrology”, such as Jim Dooge!
Jim attended all General Assemblies of the EGS and EGU
up to the end. Some years ago he even committed that he will
only continue to attend these and no other meetings. He carefully listened to the talks and enjoyed attending the poster sessions. His main concern was with the work of the younger and
THE EGGS
Alberto Montanari, Outgoing president of the Division
on Hydrological Sciences of EGU,
and
Arne K. Richter, General & Executive Secretary of the
EGS/EGU, 1987 - 2009
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Seismic Oceanography as a Tool
to Monitor Climate Change
G.G. Buffett, R. Carbonell Institute of Earth Sciences
Jaume Almera, CSIC, Barcelona, Spain
Analysis of the abundance of existing and to be acquired seismic reflection data for stratification within the ocean itself
(known as seismic oceanography) gives a new perspective on how we can develop models of ocean circulation and
therefore climate. Since 2003 seismic oceanography has begun in earnest with many international groups analyzing
archived and new seismic data. Seismic oceanography provides approximately 100 times the horizontal resolution as
in situ probes, allowing large-scale flow visualization and the quantification of dynamics, temperature and turbulent dissipation rates among other aspects of physical oceanography. Given the large databases of archived marine seismic
data recorded by industry and academia and their incidentally recorded ocean stratification (where it exists), great
insights could be made into the understanding of ocean circulation, thereby constraining future climate models.
Climate change presents important research challenges
and opportunities because it can result in potential catastrophic outcomes that will significantly modify the circumstances under which we inhabit the planet. Not only will a general global
warming trend affect (among other prerequisites for civilization) agriculture, but, because the biosphere is an extraordinarily complex system with unpredictable positive feedback
mechanisms, many unidentified consequences may result.
Since the ocean and atmosphere are coupled, ocean circulation plays a very important role. The ocean, though much less
in volume than the atmosphere, carries an equivalent amount
of heat due to its high heat capacity. Ocean circulation is driven
mainly by the wind and secondarily by tidal forcing. The wind
is driven by uneven solar heating of the Earth as it rotates
between day and night. The wind in turn, along with density
differences, drive ocean circulation. The basic mechanisms of
ocean circulation are known, but the details of, for instance,
how mixing of water masses and large-scale circulation occur
and to what degree, could be further explored and better understood by analyzing the plethora of existing archived seismic
data in conjunction with corresponding oceanographic data.
Figure 1 - Marine MCS acquisition showing impulsive source and raypaths of seismic waves as they reflect and transmit upon encountering an
acoustic impedance boundary (approximately equivalent to an isopycnal).
channel). As the source and receiver array are being towed,
air-gun ‘shots’ are ‘fired’ at controlled distances. The receiver
array records both the energy directly from the source as well
as the less-intense back scattered energy from layers within
the ocean and solid Earth. Data are then sorted by common
mid-point (the mid-distance between source and receiver), corrected for geometrical spreading energy loss and hyperbolic
‘move-out’ of traces as a result of the increasing arrival time
of reflected energy at longer distances along the streamer
(offset). Once data gathers of common-midpoint traces are
aligned through this process, the data images can be stacked
(or, summed) together to emphasize signal and diminish noise.
The result is a two (or three) dimensional section of the subsurface as if independent sources and receivers were co-located
and only vertically travelling sound waves were considered
(Fig 2).
The MCS Method
Multi-channel seismic (MCS) reflection profiling is a common method used by the hydrocarbon industry for exploration
of natural resources (Fig 1).
Marine seismic surveys have been conducted over the
oceans since the late fifties, incidentally recording the comparatively faint acoustic reflections within the ocean. The method
proceeds through the use of a towed impulsive source (an airgun which releases a known volume of pressurised air) and a
streamer, which is a cable filled with numerous highly sensitive
pressure sensors called hydrophones. Methodologically, the
effectiveness of MCS reflection profiling is in its redundancy
of sources and receivers (several of which comprise each
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The GO Project
In 2007 acquisition began for the first large-scale joint seismic and oceanography project, GO (Geophysical Oceanography), situated in the Gulf of Cadiz, where Mediterranean Water
spills into the Atlantic Ocean via the Strait of Gibraltar (Fig 3).
The GO project included participation from eight separate European research institutions in The United Kingdom, France,
Spain, Italy, Germany and Portugal. It was carried out with two
ships, the British ship RRS Discovery and the German vessel
FS Poseidon, conducting high (up to about 200 Hz) and low
resolution (20-80 Hz) seismics coincident and simultaneous
to the launching of in situ probes, along with Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers and ocean bottom seismometers among
other oceanographic tools. From the GO initiative came many
technical publications detailing the utility and limits of seismic
oceanography.
Mainly, it can be said that seismic oceanography is a form
of large-scale flow visualization, allowing the tracking of isopycnals (lines of equal density - approximately corresponding
to acoustic impedance stratification) over long horizontal distances. Indeed, one of the main advantages of seismic oceanography is that we can now create horizontally near-continuous images of oceanic layering previously unfeasible with in
situ probes (which are typically dropped every 1 km or so). In
this way seismic oceanography permits a horizontal resolution
some one hundred times better than what is feasible with conventional methods.
Figure 2 - Two-dimensional vertical seismic slice of the ocean near
northern Portugal. The seafloor is shown in black. Intriguing in this image
is a large eddy of Mediterranean-type water, called a ‘Meddy’ . Depth on
the vertical axis is about 3 km; horizontal distance is about 60 km. Notice
the strongest seismic signal at medium depths, identified as Mediterranean
Water emanating from the Strait of Gibraltar and flowing along the
coast of the Iberian peninsula. At the deepest levels, the ocean seismically
transparent, indicating homogeneity.
The Ocean - a “nuisance” in seismology?
The majority of marine seismic surveys depict the ocean
as an inconvenient nuisance, blurring the imagery of the solid
earth, analogous to how the atmosphere impedes the observation of celestial objects seen from ground-based telescopes.
The speed of sound only varies between about 1470 m/s and
1530 m/s in the ocean but remarkably, the seismic method
is sensitive to these small changes, making detection of internal structures possible. Sound reflects and refracts where
there are contrasts in acoustic impedance, which is given by
the product of density and sound speed of the media through
which it travels. For high contrasts in acoustic impedance (for
example, between water in contact with the seafloor), more
energy is reflected and less transmitted. In the solid Earth,
variations in rock type give rise to acoustic impedance contrasts, whereas within the ocean, thermohaline finestructure
(temperature and/or salinity contrasts) is the cause.
The Discovery of Seismic Oceanography
Although acoustic impedance reflections within the water column were noted by other authors as far back as the late 80’s
and early 90’s (notably, Gonella and Michon [1988] and Phillips
and Dean [1991]), it was not until the striking images of oceanic
thermohaline finestructure by Holbrook et al. [2003] that ‘seismic
oceanography’ became known as a viable tool to explore the
oceans. Following upon this research, Nandi et al. [2004] jointly
acquired seismic and in situ temperature data by the launching
of XBTs (eXpendable BathyThermographs). They found a direct
correlation between seismic reflection amplitudes and temperature contrasts as small as 0.03°C. Several other groups worldwide showed interest in the method and acquired new data as
well as re-processed archived data. Tsuji et al. [2005] and Nakamura et al. [2006] both analyzed the Kuroshio Extension Front off
the western coast of Japan. The latter study found that synthetic
seismograms derived from temperature and salinity in situ measurements compared favorably with independent seismic data.
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Figure 3 - Seismic oceanography in-action. Foreground shows the
deployment of an oceanographic in situ probe (XBT). Background shows
surface bubble of seismic airgun source. Photo by the author (G.G.
Buffett), Gulf of Cadiz, 2007.
Seismology as a tool to monitor climate change
What if we could look back in the past at what ocean currents were like 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years ago? Have circulation patterns changed in lockstep with industrialization and
increased greenhouse gas emissions? What might future circulation patterns be? Knowing this information, can we take
action to prevent detrimental change? Recent advances in
seismic data analysis by various authors have made significant advances in the understanding of physical oceanographic
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The SEISSEA project
processes from seismic data alone. Our ability to construct
models that represent objective physical reality regarding
ocean processes helps build a comprehensive understanding
of the ocean’s role in the distribution of heat around the planet
and thereby, the effect this has on climate. A thorough understanding of the ocean permits a more comprehensive understanding of the role of the global ocean in Earth systems and is
therefore essential to a collective understanding of the planet
and how society’s actions influence it. The following are some
of the most recent advances into the understanding of ocean
processes via the analysis and interpretation of seismic data.
The Tyrrhenian sea is an semi-enclosed deep basin in
the Mediterranean sea surrounded by Italy and the islands of
Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily. Circulation within the sea occurs
mainly along its circumference confining the deepest, central
part of the basin to experience little flux of seawater on seasonal to annual scales, allowing the stable formation of thermohaline staircases. As such, the Tyrrhenian sea is a natural
laboratory for the study of these stable structures, which are
regular, well-defined, step-wise variations in vertical temperature and salinity gradients, which manifest themselves on seismic data as near horizontal stratification. They are found where
turbulent mixing is particularly weak.
The SEISSEA (Seismic Inversion and Stochastic Spectral
Analysis of Thermohaline Staircases in the Tyrrhenian sea)
project will commence this year at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University (IFM-GEOMAR) with analysis
of seismic oceanography data acquired in May and October of
2010. The project will focus on developing the seismic methodologies necessary to optimally image and extract valuable
information from thermohaline staircases. This research will
help the scientific community better understand internal wave
propagation and turbulent mixing and the processes which
lead to density stratification, thus contributing to the creation
of the best possible models of ocean circulation, and by extension, models of climate change.
2008:
• Krahmann et al. [2008] derived horizontal wave number
spectra from archived Iberian Atlantic Margin (IAM) seismic
profiles, allowing the estimation of internal wave energy.
• Biescas et al. [2008] made the first connection to doublediffusive processes at the margin of meddies.
2009:
• Buffett et al. [2009] analyzed seismic data from along the
trajectory of the Mediterranean Undercurrent, observing that
the processes responsible for the progressively diminishing
seismic amplitudes within the Undercurrent were two-way mixing between water masses.
• Holbrook et al. [2009] imaged internal tides near the Norwegian continental slope.
• Klaeschen et al. [2009] estimated the dynamics of ocean
stratification by deriving the optimal geometry necessary to
corroborate against simultaneously acquired in situ sound
speed estimates.
• Mιnesguen et al. [2009], through numerical simulations,
investigated the effect of seismic source bandwidth on rotating,
stratified turbulence of an anticyclonic eddy.
• Sallarθs et al. [2009] addressed the relative contribution
of temperature and salinity to ocean acoustic reflectivity.
• Sheen et al. [2009] estimated ocean mixing rates from
seismic data.
A Professional Appeal
Given the excess of marine seismic data acquired over the
past fifty or more years, oil corporations and research institutions
may be inclined to donate the water column data (the upper samples from seismic traces, until the seafloor) from archived datasets as a public service. While it is understandable that the crustal
seismic data may be of proprietary interest, it is unlikely that the
incidentally recorded water column data is of any value for example, to the hydrocarbon industry. This exercise would be rather
routine (possibly even semi-automated) and would only require
the reading of archived analogue or digital data and the truncation
of seismic traces and upload to an online server. A useful forum
for the dissemination of this data would be websites such as the
Virtual Seismic Atlas (http://see-atlas.leeds.ac.uk:8080/home.jsp)
which hosts a special section dedicated to seismic oceanography.
In this way marine seismic oceanography data could be widely
accessible, where it could be tested against publicly available
oceanographic data, such as those available on website databases like the World Ocean Database (http://www.nodc.noaa.
gov/OC5/SELECT/dbsearch/dbsearch.html).
Many times in science, a tool or methodology has other applications than its originally intended purpose. The serendipitous discovery by Holbrook et al. [2003] of detailed fine structure has raised the bar on what knowledge can be obtained
from marine seismic data of the ocean, a new tool that is being
called ‘seismic oceanography’. Analysis and interpretation of
both new and old seismic data presents a unique opportunity
to ‘see’ the ocean in ways not possible with traditional oceanographic techniques, thus providing a complementary tool to
understand the oceans and, by extension, the climate system.
Paradoxically, the tool that has arguably been the most effective in locating the oil that has contributed substantially to anthropogenic global warming may be used to learn about ocean
circulation such that we can then mitigate it.
2010:
• Quentel et al. [2010] characterized mesoscale and submesoscale structures in Mediterranean Water.
• Buffett et al. [2010] applied stochastic methods to estimate scale lengths.
• Biescas et al. [2010] and Fer et al. [2010] both imaged
thermohaline staircases.
In the meantime, new acquisition is ongoing, in the form of
purely seismic oceanography surveys, and so-called ‘piggyback’ surveys where in situ oceanographic data are acquired
alongside already planned seismic surveys for the study of
the Earth’s crust (either academic or hydrocarbon industry related). While in the case of the latter, acquisition parameters
and survey locations cannot be chosen (and hence, optimized
by seismic oceanographers), the multitude of seismic surveys
being conducted (especially in light of society’s thirst for oil) ensures newly acquired data for the foreseeable future. Might it
become commonplace that seismic oceanography is a natural
addition to all marine seismic surveys?
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References and further reading
imaging of rotating stratified turbulence surrounding an anticyclonic eddy from field data and numerical simulations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L00D05, doi: 10.1029/2009GL039951.
Nakamura, Y., T. Noguchi, T. Tsuji, S. Itoh, H. Niino and T.
Matsuoka, 2006. Simultaneous seismic reflection and physical oceanographic observations of oceanic fine structure in the
Kuroshio extension front, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L23605,
doi:10.1029/2006GL027437.
Nandi, P., W.S. Holbrook, P. PÎramo, S. Pearse and R.W.
Schmitt, 2004. Seismic reflection imaging of water mass
boundaries in the Norwegian Sea, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31,
L23311, doi:10.1029/2004GL021325.
Phillips, J.D. and D.F. Dean, 1991. Multichannel acoustic
reflection profiling of ocean water mass temperature/salinity
interfaces, Ocean Variability and Acoustic Propagation, edited
by J. Potter and A. Warn-Varnas, pp. 199-214, Springer, New
York.
Sallarθs, V., B. Biescas, G. Buffett, R. Carbonell, J.J. DaÏobeitia, and J.L. PelegrÎ, 2009. Relative contribution of temperature and salinity to ocean acoustic reflectivity, Geophys. Res.
Lett., 36, L00D06, doi:10.1029/2009GL040187.
Sheen, K.L., N.J White, R.W. Hobbs, 2009. Estimating mixing rates from seismic images of oceanic structure, Geophys.
Res. Lett., 36, L00D04, doi:10.1029/2009GL040106.
Tsuji, T., T. Noguchi, H. Niino, T. Matsuoka, Y. Nakamura,
H. Tokuyama, S. Kuramoto and N. Bangs, 2005. Two-dimensional mapping of fine structures in the Kuroshio Current using seismic reflection data, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L14609,
doi:10.1029/2005GL023095.
Biescas, B., V. Sallarθs, J.L. PelegrÎ, F. MachÎn, R. Carbonell, G. Buffett, J.J. DaÏobeitia and A. Calahorrano, 2008.
Imaging meddy fine structure using multichannel seismic data,
Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L11609, doi:10.1029/2008GL033971.
Buffett, G.G, B. Biescas, J.L. PelegrÎ, F. MachÎn, V.
Sallarθs, R. Carbonell, D. Klaeschen, and R.W. Hobbs, 2009.
Seismic reflection along the path of the Mediterranean Undercurrent, Cont. Shelf Res., 29, 1848–1860, doi:10.1016/j.
csr.2009.05.017.
Buffett, G.G., C. A. Hurich, E. A. Vsemirnova, R. W. Hobbs,
V. Sallarθs, R. Carbonell, D. Klaeschen, and B. Biescas, 2010.
Stochastic Heterogeneity Mapping around a Mediterranean
salt lens, Ocean Sci., 6, 423–429.
Buffett, G.G., 2011. Seismic Oceanography: A new tool
to characterize physical oceanographic structures and processes, Ph.D. thesis, Universitat de Barcelona (http://www.
tesisenxarxa.net/TDX-0210111-121223/).
Gonella, J. and D. Michon, 1988. Ondes internes profondes revelees par sismique reflexion au sein des masses d’eau
en atlantique-est, Acad. Sci. Paris Ser. II 306, 781.
Holbrook, W.S., P. PÎramo, S. Pearse and R.W. Schmitt,
2003. Thermohaline fine structure in an oceanographic front
from seismic reflection profiling, Science, 301, pp.821-824.
doi:10.1126/science.1085116.
Holbrook, W.S., I. Fer and R.W. Schmitt, 2009. Images of
internal tides near the Norwegian continental slope, Geophys.
Res. Lett., 36, L00D10, doi:10.1029/2009GL038909.
Klaeschen, D., R.W. Hobbs, G. Krahmann, C. Papenberg,
and E. Vsemirnova, 2009. Estimating movement of reflectors
in the water column using Seismic Oceanography, Geophys.
Res. Lett., 36, L00D03, doi:10.1029/2009GL038973.
MÎnesguen, C., B. L. Hua, C. Papenberg, D. Klaeschen, L.
Gιli, and R.W. Hobbs, 2009. Effect of bandwidth on seismic
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Grant George Buffett, C/ Lluis Sole Sabaris s/n. Barcelona. E-08028 SPAIN, [email protected]
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Scientists heating up conference
hall at EGU general assembly
Temperature measurements in a General Assembly Hall in Vienna
Monday morning, in the Innovative techniques and unintended use of measurement equipment (HS1.5) session, Delft
scientist Miriam Gerrits, helped by Stijn de Jong, Jop Jansen en Rolf Hut, set up an eight meter high mast in Hall A of
the Assembly building, equipped with a coiled fibre optic cable as a demonstration of the novel setup used to measure
the air temperature gradient close to the surface for estimating actual evaporation.
All visitors to the EGU general assembly know that it can
get warm while waiting in line for coffee. Delft scientists measured the temperature effect of coffee breaks on local indoor
temperature distribution using fibre optic distributed temperature sensing (DTS).
Monday morning, in the “Innovative techniques and unintended use of measurement equipment (HS1.5)” session, Delft
scientist Miriam Gerrits, helped by Stijn de Jong, Jop Jansen
en Rolf Hut, set up an eight meter high mast equipped with a
coiled fibre optic cable as a demonstration of the novel setup
used to measure the air temperature gradient close to the surface for estimating actual evaporation. The setup, thought up
by Wim Luxemburg and implemented together with Miriam
Gerrits and Tanja Euser was successfully tested on the campus of Delft University of Technology. Of course, in Conference
hall A of the Vienna Centre, no evaporation was measured, but
the vertical temperature profile measured throughout the day
still showed interesting features.
Figure 2: Vertical temperature profile over time in Hall A around the
lunch break.
seen in the data: the higher parts of the hall are cooled before
the lower parts. Finally, at the end of the lunch break, a lot of
people visited the poster area, causing a larger increase in
temperature.
Fibre Optic Distributed Temperature Sensing has become
increasingly popular in recent years as a tool in environmental
monitoring (see list of articles below). Although the dataset collected during the EGU general assembly has no direct link to
the earth sciences, it does show the potential for using DTS as
a measurement method. And the heat that scientists bring into
a poster hall of course.
References
Hoes, O. A. C., Luxemburg, W. M. J., Westhof, M. C., van
de Giesen, N. C., Selker, J., 2009. Identifying seepage in
ditches and canals in ploders in the netherlands by distributed
temperature sensing. Lowland Technology International 11 (2),
21-26.
Lowry, C. S., Walker, J. F., Hunt, R. J., Anderson, M. P.,
2007. Identifying spatial/variability of groundwater discharge
in a wetland stream using a distributed temperature sensor.
Water Resour. Res. 43 (10), 10408.
Moffett, K. B., Tyler, S. W., Torgersen, T., Menon, M., Selker, J. S., Gorelick, S. M., 2008. Processes controlling the ther-
Figure 1: Vertical temperature profile over time in Hall A.
In Figure 2, a close up is provided of the time window
around the lunch break. After the end of the morning sessions
(noon), some people briefly walked into hall A. This caused a
small, but noticeable temperature rise “at floor level”. Since the
mast was deployed close to one of the air conditioning units
in the roof, the cooling is provided from above. This can be
THE EGGS
9
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mal regime of saltmarsh channel beds. Environ. Sci. Technol.
42 (3), 671-676.
Roth, T. R., Westhoff, M. C., Huwald, H., Huff, J. A., Rubin,
J. F., Barrenetxea, G., Vetterli, M., Parriaux, A., Selker, J. S.,
Parlange, M. B., 2010. Stream temperature response to three
riparian vegetation scenarios by use of a distributed temperature validated model. Environ. Sci. Technol. 44 (6), 2072-2078.
Selker, J., van de Giesen, N., Westhoff, M., Luxemburg,
W., Parlange, M. B., 2006a. Fiber optics opens window on
stream dynamics. Geophys. Res. Lett. 33 (24), L24401.
Selker, J. S., Thvenaz, L., Huwald, H., Mallet, A.,
Luxemburg,W., van de Giesen, N., Stejskal, M., Zeman, J.,
Westhoff, M., Parlange, M. B., 2006b. Distributed fiber-optic
temperature sensing for hydrologic systems. Water Resour.
Res. 42 (12), W12202.
Steele-Dunne, S. C., Rutten, M. M., Krzeminska, D. M.,
Hausner, M., Tyler, S. W., Selker, J., Bogaard, T. A., van de
Giesen, N. C., 2010. Feasibility of soil moisture estimation using passive distributed temperature sensing. Water Resour.
Res. 46 (3), W03534.
Suarez, F., Aravena, J. E., Hausner, M. B., Childress, A.
E., Tyler, S. W., 2011. Assessment of a vertical high-resolution
THE EGGS
distributed-temperature-sensing system in a shallow thermohaline environment. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 15 (3), 1081-1093,
url http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/15/1081/2011/.
Tyler, S. W., Selker, J. S., Hausner, M. B., Hatch, C. E.,
Torgersen, T., Thodal, C. E., Schladow, S. G., 2009. Environmental temperature sensing using raman spectra dts fiber-optic methods. Water Resour. Res. 45, W00D23.
Westhoff, M. C., Bogaard, T. A., Savenije, H. H. G., 2010.
Quantifying the effect of in-stream rock clasts on the retardation of heat along a stream. Adv. Water Resour. 33 (11), 14171425.
Westhoff, M. C., Savenije, H. H. G., Luxemburg, W. M. J.,
Stelling, G. S., van de Giesen, N. C., Selker, J. S., Pfister, L.,
Uhlenbrook, S., 2007. A distributed stream temperature model
using high resolution temperature observations. Hydrol. Earth
Syst. Sci. 11 (4), 1469-1480.
Rolf Hut
Water Management
Civil Engineering & Geosciences
Delft University of Technology
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EDUCATION: The resourceful
physics teacher
Four interesting demonstrations and teaching ideas
Physics teacher Keith Gibbs shares some of his many demonstrations and experiments for the physics classroom.
During more than 30 years of teaching physics, I have
come across many interesting demonstrations and teaching
ideas – often suggested by relatives, friends, colleagues and
past students. In 2000, I began to gather these ideas together
– this was the basis of the Schoolphysics website and CDROM collection. Over time, I added more explanation and
background for teachers whose specialism was not physics.
Below are four ideas from the collection. I hope that you
will find at least one of them new, challenging, informative and
fun, and that the ideas go some way towards popularising the
subject and making people realise that physics can be interesting and fun.
once observed the water boiling at
body temperature (37 °C)!
Safety note: wear safely goggles.
Although unlikely, it is possible that the
glass flask could shatter, so keep a
safety screen between the experiments
and the students. If possible, stand behind the screen yourself.
See also the general safety note.
Theory
Boiling water under reduced pressure
The explanation is that the saturated vapour pressure of water depends
on the temperature: the lower the temperature, the less water vapour the air
can hold. When the water condenses,
it lowers the pressure in the flask – and
this, of course, allows water to boil at
less than 100 °C.
Age range: 13-15
This simple experiment demonstrates that the saturated
vapour pressure of water depends on the temperature. It is
best performed as a teacher demonstration, with a safety
screen between the apparatus and the students.
Materials
A round-bottomed flask
A bung with two holes
A glass tube, with an external diameter to fit the hole in the
bung
A rubber tube with a diameter to connect to the glass tube
A thermometer to fit the hole in the bung
A Bunsen burner
A retort stand and clamp
A safety screen
A tray
Water
An alternative method
A simpler method is to partly fill (about 20%) a syringe with
50-60°C warm water. Then pull on the plunger of the syringe.
This lowers the pressure in the syringe, causing the water to
boil at well below 100 °C.
Electromagnetic separator
Age range: 16-18
This is a small-scale simulation of the type of electromagnetic separator that is used industrially to separate non-ferrous
metals from other non-metallic scrap, and is suitable as a
teacher demonstration.
Procedure
Fit the rubber tube onto the end of the glass tube.
Fit the thermometer and glass tube into the holes in the
bung, pour cold water into the flask until it is just less than half
full. Then seal the flask with the bung.
Fit the clamp onto the rubber tube but do not close the
clamp.
Use the Bunsen burner to heat the water to boiling.
Close the clamp and turn off the Bunsen burner.
Invert the flask and pour cold water over it.
Materials
A U-shaped electromagnet with an iron core to give a high
field intensity
An AC (alternating current) power supply
Aluminium scraps (e.g. kitchen foil)
A piece of thin card
Some scraps of paper
Steam will condense inside the flask, reducing the pressure and allowing the water to start boiling again. When the
water stops boiling, pour more water over the flask. How low
can you get the temperature and still observe the water boiling? You should be able to get the water to boil at 40 °C – I
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credits: Keith Gibbs
Procedure
Place the card on top of one arm of the electromagnet and
put a few scraps of aluminium and paper onto the card.
Connect the electromagnet to an AC supply and turn on the
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current. The aluminium scraps will be ejected from the magnetic field.
oscillate, they have an acceleration that is due to both the constant gravitational field of Earth
and the simple harmonic motion
of the oscillation.
As the jar moves upwards,
its net acceleration is greater
than that of Earth’s gravitational
field and as it falls, its acceleration is less than that of Earth’s
field. On the downward part of
the motion, it is as if the jar were
on the Moon, where the gravitational acceleration is less than
on Earth.
This is a very useful demonstration of the equivalence of
gravitational and inertial fields.
Theory
The AC electromagnet induces eddy currents within the
aluminium scraps. These turn the scraps into tiny electromagnets that are then repelled by the large electromagnet and so
fly off the card. With non-metallic scraps there are no induced
currents and so these scraps remain on the card.
In a moving-belt version of this experiment, mixed metal and
non-metal scraps are passed along a belt over an AC electromagnet. This induces eddy currents in the metal scraps, which
are then repelled by the field and fly off sideways while the
remaining non-metal scraps continue along the belt. Schools
might be able to construct such a version for demonstration
use, using a mixture of paper and aluminium.
Acknowledgements
credits: Keith Gibbs
The editors of Science in
School would like to thank Catherine Cutajar and Gerd Vogt for
their help in selecting the experiments to include in this article.
credits: Keith Gibbs
Web reference
A floating block in a falling jar
w1 – To view more (free) teaching material collected by
Keith Gibbs or to purchase the CD-ROMs, see: www.schoolphysics.co.uk
After graduating from University College London, UK, with
a degree in physics, Keith Gibbs took a PGCE teacher training
course at Cambridge University, UK. He subsequently taught
physics in four different schools across the UK for 36 years,
retiring in 2002.
The ideas in this article are just a few of more than 700
ideas and experiments that Keith Gibbs has collected and devised over the years, available on CD-ROM (currently £10).
These, as well as explanations suitable for 11- to 19-year-old
students, animations, lesson plans, images and much more,
are available on a further CD-ROM which, once bought (currently £35), can be copied within the school and made available
via the school’s intranet. See the Schoolphysics websitew1.
Keith has written and contributed to a number of physics
textbooks. Recently, he has worked with Pearson Education
on animations for advanced-level physics courses, and practical projects for younger physics students.
Keith also travels extensively, demonstrating his collection
of experiments. If you are interested in a visit, contact him via
the Schoolphysics websitew1.
Age range: 11-18, depending on the treatment of the theory.
This is a very useful demonstration of one of the ideas of
general relativity, using a wooden block floating in a jar of water
that is suspended from a spring.
Materials
A helical spring tied with string to a plastic jar
A wooden block or straw loaded with modelling clay (e.g.
Plasticine?)
Water
Procedure
Half fill the jar with water, add the wooden block or straw,
and suspend the apparatus from the spring.
Support the jar, then let it fall, suspended from the spring.
The jar and contents will then oscillate in a vertical plane (up
and down) but the water level will stay at the same position in
the jar, and the block or straw will float at the same level in the
water as it falls and rises.
Theory
The depth at which the wooden block or straw floats depends on both its weight (not its mass) and the upthrust on it.
The upthrust depends on the weight of water displaced. Thus,
as the acceleration of the jar and the block changes, the weight
of the block and the upthrust on it change in direct proportion
to each other; as a result, the depth at which the block floats
remains unchanged as the apparatus oscillates.
Objects undergoing acceleration behave in the same way
as they would in a gravitational field. As the jar and its contents
THE EGGS
Keith Gibbs
This article first appeared in Issue 18 of Science in School,
the European journal for science teachers (www.scienceinschool.org) and is reproduced with permission.
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COMMENT and
RESPONSE TO COMMENT
on Sensationalism and the short memory of science journalism
David Hosansky and Carl Drews comment on the article by D. Nof and N. Paldor
Comment on Sensationalism and the short memory of science journalism (published in The EGGS No. 34 at http://www.
the-eggs.org/articles.php?id=146)
We were surprised to read the article in your 8 March
2011 Newsletter No. 34 (http://www.the-eggs.org/articles.
php?id=146) in which Drs. Nof and Paldor characterize our recent press release on the parting of the Red Sea as sensationalizing the science. Our intent was to popularize work in this
area and make it accessible to the public. We certainly did not
mean to imply that Drews and Han were the first to do scientific
research on the subject. In fact, Paldor and Nof are explicitly
acknowledged in the release, as are subsequent researchers.
The attention the release received demonstrates how inherently appealing this topic is. The subsequent media coverage
should elevate the visibility of everyoneÂ’s work in this area.
the earlier work as their own, which is essentially what was
done in the NCAR press release. Had the press release stated
that more than 50% of its content (and indeed its most important conclusions) were made earlier in our 1992 article, then
there would have been no issue. But then, there would have
been no need for the press release in the first place.
Hosansky and Drew claim that the press release (to be
distinguished from the PLOSone article) original intent was
merely to “popularize science”, not popularize the work done
in NCAR. It is hard to believe that journalists, whose business
is writing, cannot make their intentions clear in the first place.
It seems to us that this “intention” was identified after the fact
as a means of responding to our EGGS article without publishing at least a partial retraction (which would have been more
appropriate in this case). We realize that the original press release was not done in malice. Rather, the NCAR media office
was probably simply not familiar with what appeared before in
both the scientific and popular literature. Namely, this is just
another case of recycled news.
The message here to the scientific community at large is
perhaps best summarized by a (slightly edited) quote from my
colleague Dr. David Mountain (University of Arizona): “With
funds getting tighter-and-tighter the competition will continue
to expand from focusing merely on the quality of the science to
focusing on the public image, name brand, and colorful packaging of the institution. A new, additional challenge emerges
for researchers--to have integrity not only in their science but
also in the spin that is sent out about it by the public relations
representatives of their institutions”.
David Hosansky, Head of Media Relations, NCAR / University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
and
Carl Drews, Atmospheric Chemistry Division, National
Center for Atmospheric Research
Response to comment
We appreciate Hosansky and Drew’s helpful and useful
comments. We have several things to say about them, however.
To begin with, our original EGGS article was not about the
NCAR media office sensationalizing science per-se but rather
about that office sensationalizing the science done at NCAR.
In that context we note that referencing an earlier article in
passing does not give the quoting authors permission to claim
THE EGGS
D. Nof and N. Paldor
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EARTH FROM SPACE
Antarctic Peninsula
This Envisat image features the northern part of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Credits: ESA
25 February 2011.- This Envisat image features the northern part of the Antarctic Peninsula, which stretches beyond the
Antarctic Circle to within 1050 km to the southern tip of South
America.
The 1000-km-long arm of the mountainous peninsula is situated between the Bellingshausen Sea on the west and the Weddell Sea on the east.
Along the peninsula, ice shelves are nourished by glaciers
streaming down from the central ice sheet plateau, which extends as a narrow spine along the central part of the peninsula.
These ice shelves are important indicators for on-going climate change because they are sandwiched by rising surface air
temperatures and a warming ocean.
Exceptional atmospheric warming of around 2.5°C over the
past 60 years has triggered the retreat and break-up of several
of the shelves. In the past 20 years seven ice shelves along the
peninsula have retreated or disintegrated, including Larsen (on
the east) and Wilkins (located farther south on the west).
Within days of its launch in March 2002, Envisat captured the
spectacular disintegration of Larsen B.
Long-term monitoring over Antarctica is important because it
provides authoritative evidence of trends.
This image was acquired by Envisat’s Medium Resolution
Imaging Spectrometer on 5 February at a resolution of 300 m.
ESA
Sark becomes World’s First Dark Sky Island
recognised by the International Dark-sky Association (IDA)
31 January 2011.- The Channel Island of Sark has been
recognised for the quality of its night sky by the International
Dark-sky Association (IDA), who have designated it the world’s
first dark sky island, the latest in a select group of dark sky
places around the world.
Sark has no public street lighting, there are no paved roads
and cars, so it does not suffer from the effects of light pollution.
This means that the night sky is very dark, with the Milky Way
stretching from horizon to horizon, meteors streaking overhead, and countless stars on display.
The announcement was hailed as a great success by astronomers. Prof Roger Davies, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, said: “This is a great achievement for Sark.
People around the world are become increasingly fascinated
by astronomy as we discover more about our universe, and
the creation of the world’s first dark sky island in the British
Isles can only help to increase that appetite. I hope this leads
to many more people experiencing the wonders of a truly dark
sky”.
Sark becomes World’s First Dark Sky Island
The award follows a long process of community consultation, which included the assessment of the sky darkness and
an audit of all the external lights on Sark. A comprehensive
lighting management plan was created by Jim Patterson of the
Institute of Lighting Engineers, and many local residents and
THE EGGS
businesses have altered their lighting to make them more dark
sky friendly, ensuring that as little light as possible spills upwards where it can drown out starlight.
Royal Astronomical Society (RAS)
The Milky Way above the Seigneur’s Mill on Sark.
Credit: Martin Morgan-Taylor
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Pluto has carbon monoxide in its atmosphere
according to results presented at National Astronomy Meeting, UK
15 April 2011.- A British-based team
of astronomers has discovered carbon
monoxide gas in the atmosphere of Pluto. Team leader Dr Jane Greaves of the
University of St Andrews presented the
new discovery in her talk on Wednesday
20 April at the National Astronomy Meeting in Venue Cymru, Llandudno, Wales.
Pluto was discovered in 1930 and
then considered as the Sun’s smallest
and most distant planet. Since 2006 it
has been regarded by astronomers as a
‘dwarf planet’, one of a handful of such
bodies with sizes of hundreds of kilometres that orbit in the distant reaches of
the Solar System, out beyond Neptune.
Pluto is the only dwarf planet known
to have an atmosphere, found in 1988
when it dimmed the light of a distant star
before Pluto passed in front of it.
The new results, obtained at the
15-metre James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii, show a strong signal
of carbon monoxide gas. Previously
the atmosphere was known to be over
a hundred kilometres thick, but the new
data raise this height to more than 3000
kilometres - a quarter of the way out to
Pluto’s largest moon, Charon. The gas
is extremely cold, about -220 degrees
Centigrade. A big surprise for the team
was that the signal is more than twice as
strong as an upper limit obtained by another group, who used the IRAM 30-metre telescope in Spain in 2000.
“It was thrilling to see the signal
gradually emerge as we added in many
nights of data”, said Dr Jane Greaves,
the team leader from the University of
St Andrews, “The change in brightness
over the last decade is startling. We
think the atmosphere may have grown
in size, or the carbon monoxide abundance may have been boosted”. Such
changes have been seen before but
only in the lower atmosphere, where
methane - the only other gas ever positively identified - has also been seen to
vary.
In 1989 Pluto made its closest approach to the Sun, a comparatively recent event given that it takes 248 years
to complete each orbit. The gases
probably result from solar heating of
surface ice, which evaporates as a consequence of the slightly higher temperatures during this period. The resulting
atmosphere is probably the most fragile
in the Solar System, with the top layers
blowing away into space.
“The height to which we see the carbon monoxide agrees well with models
of how the solar wind strips Pluto’s atmosphere” commented team member
Dr Christiane Helling, also of the University of St Andrews.
Unlike the greenhouse gas carbon
dioxide, carbon monoxide acts as a
coolant, while methane absorbs sunlight
and so produces heating. The balance
between the two gases, which are just
trace elements in what is thought to be a
nitrogen-dominated atmosphere, is critical for its fate during the many-decades
long seasons. The newly discovered
carbon monoxide may hold the key to
slowing loss of the atmosphere - but if
the chilling effect is too great, it could result in nitrogen snowfalls and all the gases freezing out onto the ground. “Seeing such an example of extra-terrestrial
climate-change is fascinating”, says Dr
Greaves. “This cold simple atmosphere
that is strongly driven by the heat from
the Sun could give us important clues to
how some of the basic physics works,
and act as a contrasting test-bed to help
us better understand the Earth’s atmosphere”.
The data were obtained with the
JCMT’s ‘receiver A’, an instrument that
has been in regular operation since the
1990s. Dr Per Friberg, who designed
new observing modes and data analysis procedures for the team, commented “This shows how we can make the
best use of telescopes and keep making
unexpected discoveries”. The JCMT is
operated jointly by the UK, Canada and
the Netherlands and is approaching its
twenty-fifth anniversary. The team have
another Pluto observing run scheduled
at the JCMT for the end of April, and
in the long-term, they hope to continue
tracking the changes in the atmosphere
at least up to the fly-by of NASA’s New
Horizons space probe in 2015.
Reference
The results will appear in “Discovery
of carbon monoxide in the upper atmosphere of Pluto”, Greaves J. S., Helling
Ch., Friberg P. A, Monthly Notices of the
Royal Astronomical Society, in press.
Artist’s impression of Pluto’s huge atmosphere of carbon monoxide. The source of this gas is erratic
evaporation from the mottled icy surface of the dwarf planet. The Sun appears at the top, as seen in
the ultra-violet radiation that is thought to force some of the dramatic atmospheric changes. Pluto’s
largest moon, Charon, is seen to the lower right. Credit: P.A.S. Cruickshank.
THE EGGS
15
Royal Astronomical Society
RAS PR 11/29 (NAM 18)
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EUROHORCs and the European Science Foundation to
continue discussions regarding ScienceEurope
ESF member organisations have not reached an agreement
on the next steps needed to merge the two organisations.
European Science Foundation member organisations have not reached an
agreement on the next steps needed
to merge the two organisations. On
Wednesday 4 May at a Special Meeting
of the European Science Foundation
(ESF) Assembly held in Frankfurt, ESF
member organisations voted on the two
options which were presented:
1) Creating a new organisation in
Brussels, based on the principles of
ESF and EUROHORCs, while winding
down ESF and closing EUROHORCs
2) Transforming the current ESF and
closing EUROHORCs, forming a new
organisation that retains an office in
Strasbourg and opens an office in Brussels.
Option 1 missed the 2/3 majority,
which was needed in order to make a
decision to wind down ESF, by a few
votes. Option 2 did not receive a majority vote.
At the earlier General Assembly of
EUROHORCs on 14 April in Istanbul,
Option 1 had received a clear majority.
Although discussions of the merger
of the two organisations have not yet
been resolved, existing commitments
will be unaffected, and both organisa-
tions are committed to continuing, uninterrupted, their joint work in pursuit of
the EUROHORCs and ESF Vision on
a Globally Competitive ERA and their
Road Map for Actions, as they have
throughout the merger process.
Both organisations will now discuss
next steps. In the meantime, if you have
any questions or comments, please feel
free to contact me or our Head of Communications, Shira Tabachnikoff.
Marja Makarow
Chief Executive
Call for Conference Proposals
The European Science Foundation invites researchers to submit proposals for research conferences
The European Science Foundation
invites researchers to submit proposals
for research conferences to take place
in 2013. The call covers Molecular Biology, Physics/Biophysics, Environmental
Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities. Successful proposals will be organised within the framework of the ESF
Research Conferences Scheme and will
be awarded a conference grant of up to
EUR 40.000.
Scheme Objectives
The ESF Research Conferences
Scheme brings together researchers
from different nationalities, backgrounds
and disciplines, and at different career
stages to jointly discuss the latest developments in new and emerging fields of
research. ESF Research Conferences
promote free discussion and exchange
of information, and aim to create longterm networks between participants.
Participation is open to researchers
from academia, industry, society and
politics worldwide.
Conference Format
Terms of the Award
The conferences last 4-5 days and
take place at predefined venues across
Europe. Attendance is limited to a maximum of 150 participants (including invited speakers). Young and early-stage researchers are encouraged to attend and
to present a short talk or a poster; some
of them will receive financial support.
Successful proponents will be responsible for the scientific programme
and quality of the conference as well as
the allocation of grants. All administrative and logistical aspects of the conference organisation will be handled by the
ESF Conferences Unit. The selected
proposals will be awarded a grant of up
to EUR 40.000, to be used for the support of invited speakers and young and
early stage researchers.
Funding Criteria and Assessment Process
Proposals must be interdisciplinary
and demonstrate a high relevance to the
scientific community in terms of novelty,
originality and timeliness. Proposals are
evaluated through international peer
review and selected by review panels
composed of members of the ESF Scientific Committees and scientists nominated by the Partner Organisations. The
international peer review takes place
between October and December 2011.
The review panel meetings take place
in early 2012. Decisions are communicated at the end of March 2012.
THE EGGS
16
Further Information
Submission Deadline: 15 September 2011.
Further information can be found at:
www.esf.org/conferences/call
ESF
back to contents
Pollution with antibiotics leads to resistant bacteria
bacteria residing in Indian rivers are full of resistance genes protecting them from otherwise effective antibiotics
21 February 2011.- Many of the substances in our most common medicines
are manufactured in India. Some of
these factories release huge quantities
of drugs to the environment. Swedish
scientists now show that bacteria in polluted rivers become resistant to a range
of antibiotics. International experts fear
that this may contribute to the development of untreatable infectious diseases
world-wide.
Using a novel method, based on
large-scale DNA sequencing, the Swedish scientists show that bacteria residing in Indian rivers are full of resistance
genes, protecting them from otherwise
effective antibiotics.
“Since we buy medicines from India,
we share moral responsibility to reduce
the pollution, says Joakim Larsson”,
associate professor at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg,
one of the scientists behind the study.
“If the pollution contributes to resistance development in clinically important bacteria, it becomes our problem
also in a very direct way”, he says.
“We have combined large-scale DNA
sequencing with novel ways to analyze
data to be able to search for thousands
of different antibiotic resistance genes in
parallel”, says Erik Kristiansson, assistant professor at Chalmers University of
Technology.
“Such an approach may become
useful also in hospitals in the future”, he
points out.
Several international experts, interviewed by the journal Nature, describe
the results as worrying.
“Even if the bacteria found are not
dangerous to humans or other animals
in the area, they may transfer their resistance genes to bacteria that are”, says
Dave Ussery, a microbiologist at the
Technical University of Denmark.
David Graham at Newcastle University, UK, describes the Indian site.
“In a way, it’s sort of like a beaker experiment that tests the worst-case scenario, only this is in a natural system”.
Björn Olsen, an infectious-disease
specialist at Uppsala University in Sweden
compares the resistance with volcano-ash.
“The cloud is going to drop down
somewhere else, not just around the
sewage plant”.
The study was carried out at the
Sahlgrenska
Academy,
University
of Gothenburg in collaboration with
Chalmers University of Technology and
Umeå University, Sweden http://dx.plos.
org/10.1371/journal.pone.0017038
Full bibliographic information:
Journal: PLoS ONE
Title of article: Pyrosequencing of
antibiotic-contaminated river sediments
reveals high levels of resistance and
gene transfer elements
Authors: Erik Kristiansson, Jerker
Fick, Anders Janzon, Roman Grabic,
Carolin Rutgersson, Birgitta Weijdegård, Hanna Söderström, D G Joakim
Larsson.
University of Gothenburg
Water pathways from the deep-sea to volcanoes
fluid cycle studied in the Costa Rican subduction zone
20 December 2010.- Oceanic plates
take up a lot of water when submerged
into the Earths’ interior at continental
margins. This water plays a central role
in plate boundary volcanism. A team
of the Collaborative Research Centre
(SFB) 574 “Fluids and Volatiles in Subduction Zones” in Kiel (Germany) has
tracked the pathway of the water up to
120 kilometre depth. This is an important piece in the puzzle to understand
the highly active volcanoes in Pacific
“ring of fire”. The study has recently
been published in Nature Geoscience.
Many volcanoes need water for their
eruption. In the upper mantle, water lowers the melting temperature of the rocks.
As a consequence, it melts faster and
can ascend in form of magma to the
Earth’s surface.
In areas where an oceanic plate
is pushed underneath a continent by
plate tectonics processes, large quantities of water reach the interior of the
Water pathways at subduction zones: through large cracks formed during the subduction process of the
oceanic plates water penetrates, is partly captured and transported in the mantle. There, high pressure
and temperatures squeeze it out of the subducting plate and the water ascends back to the surface.
graphic: Worzewski
THE EGGS
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Earth. Such a region, called subduction
zone, can be found at the west coast
of Latin and South America. Through
large cracks formed during the subduction process of the oceanic plates water penetrates, is partly captured and
transported in the mantle. There, high
pressure and temperatures squeeze it
out of the subducting plate and the water ascends back to the surface. On the
way back it supports the formation of
magma. Therefore all subduction zones
are characterized by volcanoes at the
continental margin. “So far we knew that
the entrainment of water into the Earth’s
mantle in the area of subductions zones
is substantial and that it is released
again by volcanic process. Nevertheless, the exact path of the water down to
the mantle and back to the surface had
so far not been shown in one unifying
context”, explains Tamara Worzewski,
geophysicist in the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 574 “Fluids and
Volatiles in Subduction Zones – Climate
Feedback and Trigger Mechanisms for
Natural Hazards” who has investigated
these processes. Together with colleagues she was able to show for the
first time the complete water path from
the seafloor down to 120 kilometre depth
and back to the surface using the magnetotelluric method to measure changes
in the Earths’ electromagnetic field from
which the distribution of the conductivity
of the ground can be derived.
“Measurements at greater depths
are simply much more difficult”, explains
Dr. Marion Jegen, co-author of the study
and supervisor of Worzewski’s PhD
study. Dr. Jegen is also heading a working group on magnetotelluric at SFB 574
and established the method for marine
applications in Germany. In 2007 and
2008, a continuous chain of instruments
was distributed across the subduction
zone off the coast of Coast Rica. It extended from 200 kilometres off the coast
to 160 kilometres on land beyond the
volcanic chain in Costa Rica.
Reference
Worzewski, T., M. Jegen, H. Kopp,
H. Brasse and W.T. Castillo, 2010, Magnetotelluric image of the fluid cycle in the
Costa Rican subduction zone, Nature
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/
Geocience,
NGEO1041.
SFB 574
Volcanic ash
from Iceland’s Grímsvötn volcano
27 May 2011.- This Envisat image
shows a large cloud of ash north-east of
Scotland that has been carried by winds
from Iceland’s Grímsvötn volcano about
1000 km away.
The Grímsvötn volcano, located in
southeast Iceland about 200 km east of
Reykjavik, began erupting on 21 May for
the first time since 2004.
Despite being larger than the Eyjafjallajoekull eruption that reeked havoc
on air traffic last year, the Grímsvötn
eruption is not expected to be as impactful.
Still as winds pushed the ash cloud
toward the UK, major airline carriers
grounded flights on Wednesday that
were due to fly in and out of Scotland
and Ireland.
Volcanic eruptions eject large
amounts of ash and trace gases such as
sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, often reaching the altitudes of scheduled
flights.
When flying through a volcanic ash
cloud, ash particles enter the jet engines
and can result in engine failure. The ash
can also severely damage the material
of the aircraft.
Ensuring these hazards are addressed, the Volcanic Ash Advisory
Centres (VAACs) were established in
1995 to gather information regarding
volcanic ash clouds and to assess the
possible hazard to aviation.
Satellite measurements offer an excellent means to follow the spread, extension, concentration and movement of
volcanic plumes. To this end, ESA has
developed dedicated services to provide
fast alerts on volcanic eruptions to support VAACs within the Support to Aviation Control Service project.
Interestingly, numerous aircraft condensation trails, or ‘contrails’, are visible
south of Ireland, about 800 km south of
the ash cloud. Exhaust emissions from
jet aircraft contain large amounts of water vapour, which, under certain atmospheric states, will condense to form ice
crystals.
These act as condensation nuclei
around which even more water vapour
in the surrounding air condenses. The
end result is the formation of an elongated cloud-like condensation trail in the
sky.
This image was acquired on 24 May
by Envisat’s Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer at a resolution of 300
m.
ESA
Cloud of ash north-east of Scotland that has
been carried by winds from Iceland’s Grímsvötn
volcano. Credits: ESA
THE EGGS
18
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Workshop on Glacial Erosion Modelling
Modelling glacial erosion: processes and uncertainties
Deeply incised valleys are common
features in the Alps and their foreland.
These valleys are of large practical and
scientific interest, influencing the dynamics and hydrology of ice masses,
presenting opportunities for glacial and
climate reconstruction, and raising management issues related to aggregate,
groundwater and hydrocarbon resources and radioactive waste disposal in
deep geological repositories. Although
the principles of glacial erosion are generally known, the formation of deeply
incised valleys in the foreland of the
Alps, referred to as deep glacial erosion, remains incompletely understood.
In particular, the question as to when,
where, and how future glaciations can
lead to deep glacial erosion is relevant
for the siting and long-term safety of radioactive waste repositories in northern
Switzerland.
A workshop organized by the National Cooperative for the Disposal of
Radioactive Waste (Nagra) in collaboration with the University of Zürich and
held in Unterägeri, Switzerland in April
2010 was aimed at evaluating the stateof-the-art of modelling glacial erosion
as a means for developing a better understanding of the subglacial processes
governing landscape evolution in the
Alpine foreland of northern Switzerland
in past as well as future cold environ-
ments. An international group of leading
experts was invited to contribute to an
assessment on what quantitative information glacial erosion modelling can
provide in view of safety aspects related
to radioactive waste repositories in Switzerland.
The workshop was organised around
a suite of presentations and discussions
about observations and measurements
related to glacial erosion as well as possibilities and challenges of glacial erosion modelling in view of future ice ages.
The presentations were short introductions with the idea to acquaint all participants with the current state of research
in the different areas of expertise. The
discussions were structured in a way
that led to answers to key questions.
The participants suggested that the
deformation and thermomechanics of
glacier ice are reasonably well understood and ice cover extent and ice flow
paths can be modelled with good confidence. In contrast, basal processes
including glacier hydrology, ice-bed
interaction, sliding, sediment transport
and interactions with permafrost are
comparatively poorly understood and
require considerable additional model
development to be usefully incorporated
into comprehensive coupled models.
In this respect, glacier hydrology was
particularly acknowledged as being im-
portant for realistic simulations of ice dynamics and erosional processes.
The participants generally agreed
that prognostic modelling is beyond
our present capabilities and not recommended because of substantial uncertainties in the quantification of basal processes and the relevant climate forcing
for future glacial cycles. Instead, they
suggested that diagnostic modelling
has potential value for understanding
processes and quantifying uncertainties
and for testing sensitivities and process
parameterizations.
According to the participants, modelling strategies that hold promise include
ensemble modelling to explore the
range of outcomes over the entire range
of uncertainty in variables and extremal
(end-member) modelling to bracket best
and worst cases. These approaches
can lead to the identification of potentially important processes and parameters and thus the component models
needed (e.g. glacier hydrology, glacial
sedimentary processes) for comprehensive coupled models.
Urs H. Fischer
Hardstrasse 73
CH-5430 Wettingen
Switzerland
[email protected]
Bird-centric solutions to avian collisions
bird mortality caused by collisions from office block windows to power lines and wind turbines is
the largest unintended human cause of avian fatalities worldwide
Ever been startled by a sudden thud
on the window, only to see some poor
bird fly away half-dazed? A study published in Ibis, the International Journal
of Avian Science, sheds new light on
why some species of bird are prone to
colliding with large man—made objects,
many of which seem easily avoidable to
human eyes.
‘From a human perspective it appears very odd that birds so often collide with large objects as if they don’t
see them’, commented Professor Graham Martin from Birmingham University
in the UK. It is widely held that flight in
birds is controlled primarily by vision, but
birds see different from humans.
To get a better understanding of how
birds view the world Prof. Martin turned
to sensory ecology, a field of study which
investigates how sensory information
underlies an animal’s behaviour and its
interactions with the environment. Until
now, it has been a matter of finding a
solution to bird collision problems based
upon making the perceived hazard more
conspicuous to humans, not birds.
The research revealed that a set
of interrelationships exists between a
bird’s visual capacities, the interpretaTHE EGGS
19
tion of sensory information, and the
behaviour of birds when flying in open
airspace. ‘When in flight, birds may turn
their heads to look down, either with the
binocular field or with the lateral part of
an eye’s visual field’, explained Professor Martin. ‘Such behaviour results in
certain species being at least temporarily blind in the direction of travel’.
Professor Martin also explored how
avian frontal vision is tuned for the detection of movement, rather than spatial
detail. When a bird is hunting detecting movement may be more important
than simply looking ahead into open
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airspace. In addition, birds have a restricted range of flight speeds; for many
birds it is simply impossible for them to
fly slowly, making it difficult to adjust the
rate of information they gain if visibility is
reduced by rain, mist or low level lights.
The problem of bird collisions is a
serious concern for conservationists.
Research suggests that bird mortality caused by collisions with human
artefacts — from office block windows
to power lines and wind turbines — is
the largest unintended human cause of
avian fatalities worldwide. In Europe, it
is estimated that over a 16—year period
approximately 25 per cent of juvenile
and 6 per cent of adult White Storks (Ciconia ciconia) died annually from power
line collisions and electrocutions.
Prof. Martin said that ‘while solutions
may have to be considered on a species
by species basis, where collision incidents are high it may be more effective
to divert or distract birds from their flight
path rather than attempt to make the
hazard more conspicuous’.
Reference:
Graham R. Martin, April 2011, Understanding bird collisions with manmade objects: a sensory ecology approach, The International Journal of
Avian Science, Volume 153, Issue 2,
pages 239–254.
Chemical structure of fossils
fossils dating from the Palaeozoic era contained the polysaccharide chitin and structural protein,
materials easily degraded by microorganisms.
24/02/2011.- The team included
Professor George Cody from the Geophysical Laboratory at the Carnegie
Institution for Science in Washington in
the US and Professor Andrew C. Scott
from the Department of Earth Sciences
at Royal Holloway, University of London
in the UK.
The oldest molecular signature of
chitin-protein complex was previously
discovered in 25-million-year-old Cenozoic fossils, while remnants of structural
protein were found in 80 million-year-old
Mesozoic fossils. But in this latest study,
scientists found relicts of protein-chitin
complex in fossils of arthropods from the
Palaeozoic era — a finding that no one
would have ever imagined.
Among other common features, arthropods have exoskeletons or cuticles.
The outer portions of these cuticles are
made up of a composite of chitin fibres
that are embedded in a protein matrix.
As chitin and structural protein are easily
degraded by microorganisms, scientists
presumed they would only be present in
more recent fossils. While studying the
fossil remains of a 310-million-year-old
scorpion cuticle from the US state of
Illinois and a 417-million-year-old eu-
rypterid — an extinct scorpion-like arthropod, possibly related to horseshoe
crabs — from Ontario in Canada, Professor Cody and his team discovered it
wasn’t true.
Using sophisticated analytical instrument at the Advanced Light Source facility in the US, the researchers measured
the absorption spectra of low-energy Xrays by carbon, nitrogen and oxygen in
the fossils. These measurements were
taken at a resolution in the order of 25
nanometres. The researchers showed
that the majority of carbon, nitrogen and
oxygen found in these fossils from the
Palaeozoic era came from a proteinchitin complex.
‘This study shows that fossil arthropod cuticle exists as a nanoscale composite of waxes and degraded, but still
nitrogen-rich, chitin-protein complex’,
the authors wrote.
Not surprisingly, the protein-chitin
material was somewhat degraded, either by chemical processes or partial
bacterial degradation, according to the
scientists.
‘It is clear that the fossil macromolecule differs considerably from the initial
chitin-protein composite of the modern
cuticle’, the authors write. ‘These differences can be interpreted as a result of
extensive (but not complete) bacterial
degradation and possibly subsequent
diagenetic alteration’, they add.
‘Extensive degradation of ester,
amide, and glycosidic bonds likely destroyed much of the chitin-protein complex and freed fatty acids’, while ‘water
elimination from chitin yielded unsaturated carbon that increases absorption
intensity in the aromatic and/or olefinic
region’.
Professor Scott says the research
would ‘aid our understanding of the fossilisation process and this new technique
allows us to reveal the chemical nature
of the fossil without total destruction’.
The vestigial protein-chitin complex
may play a ‘critical role in organic fossil preservation by providing a substrate
protected from total degradation by a
coating waxy substances that protect
the arthropods from desiccation,’ he
says.
EUROPA : Research Information Centre. Original URL: http://
ec.europa.eu/research/headlines/
news/article_11_02_24_en.html
Artefacts shed light on modern human journey
artefacts recently unearthed in the United Arab Emirates suggest that humans could have arrived on the Arabian
Peninsula directly from Africa as early as 125 000 years ago
02/07/2011.- Researchers led by
Hans-Peter Uerpmann from Eberhard
Karls Universität Tübingen in Germany
and Simon Armitage from Royal Holloway, University of London in the UK
questioned traditional thinking on the
arrival of Africans on the Arabian Peninsula after discovering an ancient human
toolkit at the Jebel Faya archaeological
site in the UAE. They said the toolkit reTHE EGGS
20
sembled technology used by early humans in east Africa, but not the craftsmanship that emerged from the Middle
East.
back to contents
The toolkit, which includes relatively
primitive hand-axes along with a variety
of scrapers and perforators, suggested
that technological innovation was not
necessary for early humans to migrate
onto the Arabian Peninsula, according
to Dr Armitage. He and his team calculated the age of the stone tools using
luminescence dating.
This is a relatively new method of
dating archaeological sites and materials by measuring the amount of light
energy trapped in mineral crystals.
They determined that the artefacts were
about 100.000 to 125.000 years old,
concluding that humans could have arrived on the Arabian Peninsula as early
as 125.000 years ago — directly from
Africa rather than via the Nile Valley or
the Near East, as researchers suggested in past studies.
‘These anatomically modern humans — like you and me — had evolved
in Africa about 200.000 years ago and
subsequently populated the rest of the
world’, Dr Armitage says, adding that the
findings ‘should stimulate a re-evaluation of the means by which we modern
humans became a global species’. The
passage of modern humans from Africa
to the Arabian Peninsula would most
likely have been as part of a migration
spreading across Europe, Asia and Australia.
Dr Uerpmann and his team also
analysed sea-level and climate-change
records for the region during the last interglacial period, approximately 130.000
years ago. They determined that the
Bab al-Mandab Strait, which separates
Arabia from the Horn of Africa, would
have narrowed due to lower sea-levels,
allowing safe passage prior to and at the
beginning of the last interglacial period.
At that time, the Arabian Peninsula was
much wetter than today with greater
vegetation cover and a network of lakes
and rivers. Such a landscape would
have allowed early humans access into
Arabia and then into the Fertile Crescent region in Western Asia and India,
according to the researchers.
‘Archaeology without ages is like a
jigsaw with the interlocking edges removed — you have lots of individual
pieces of information but you can’t fit
them together to produce the big picture’, Dr Armitage explains. ‘At Jebel
Faya, the ages reveal a fascinating picture in which modern humans migrated
out of Africa much earlier than previously thought, helped by global fluctuations
in sea-level and climate change in the
Arabian Peninsula’.
Source: Research Headlines.
Original URL: http://ec.europa.
eu/research/headlines/news/article_11_02_07_en.html
Gas-phase Carbonic Acid Isolated
carbonic acid vapor is composed of at least three different species in the gas-phase
11 January 2011.- A team of chemists headed by Thomas Loerting from
the University of Innsbruck and Hinrich
Grothe from the Vienna University of
Technology (TU Wien) have prepared
and isolated gas-phase carbonic acid
and have succeeded in characterizing
the gas-phase molecules by using infrared spectroscopy. The results are published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
Widespread belief still prevails that
stable carbonic acid cannot be produced in pure form and is practically
non-existent as it immediately decomposes to carbon dioxide and water.
However, Innsbruck chemists headed
by Erwin Mayer (Institute of General,
Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry)
refuted this persistent dogma in chemistry several years ago. In an international
first, the scientists have now produced
gas-phase carbonic acid and, together
with a research group headed by Hinrich Grothe at the Vienna University of
Technology, they have also succeeded
in proofing the existence of these molecules. Carbonic acid vapor is composed
of at least three different species in the
gas-phase: a cyclic dimer consisting of
two molecules and two different types of
monomers.
Innsbruck scientists were first in producing two types of carbonic acid crystals.
(Photo: Uni Innsbruck).
For this experiment the researchers
prepared carbonic acid in the laboratory in Innsbruck. It was then stored in
liquid nitrogen and transported to Vienna by PhD student Jürgen Bernard.
At the Institute of Materials Chemistry
THE EGGS
21
at the TU Wien the solid carbonic acid
was warmed to minus 30 degrees Celsius. “During this process the carbonic
acid molecules entered the gas-phase”,
says Loerting. This is a surprising result because many experts in the field
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believed that carbonic acid immediately
decomposes to carbon dioxide and water. The Austrian scientists trapped the
carbonic acid vapor in a solid matrix of
the inert gas argon and cooled it down.
“This produced a frozen image of the
carbonic acid vapor, which we analyzed
by using high-resolution infrared spectroscopy at the TU Wien”, says Hinrich
Grothe. “The spectrum we produced is
extremely precise and we were able to
assign the spectral bands to the vibration of each single molecule”. For more
than a decade, the chemists have been
supported in their experimental research
by Klaus Liedl from the Institute of Theoretical Chemistry in Innsbruck. His team
has helped to interpret the experimental
data with computational models. Additional calculations have been performed
by Oscar Galvez from CSIC Madrid
(Spanish National Research Council).
This experiment not only is of high
importance for basic research but also
for astronomy. The identification of gasphase carbonic acid in the atmosphere
of celestial bodies may be facilitated
by the detailed spectra of gas-phase
carbonic acid described in this study.
“Conditions in space environments suggest that gas-phase carbonic acid may
be found in the coma of comets or the
poles of Mars”, says Thomas Loerting.
“However, infrared spectra currently
measured in extraterrestrial environments are still too imprecise to be comparable to the results produced in our
laboratory”.
Reference
Spectroscopic Observation of GasPhase Carbonic Acid Isolated in Matrix.
Jürgen Bernard, Markus Seidl, Ingrid
Kohl, Klaus Liedl, Erwin Mayer, Oscar
Gálvez, Hinrich Grothe, Thomas Loerting. Angewandte Chemie International
Edition. DOI: 10.1002/anie.201004729.
Reference url:
http://www.uibk.ac.at/
Dr Monica Dietl starts as COST Office Director
31 March 2011.- Dr Monica Dietl is
joining the European Cooperation in
Science and Technology (COST) as its
new COST Office Director. COST is one
of the longest running intergovernmental programmes supporting collaboration between scientists and researchers
in Europe and beyond. The COST Office
is provided by the European Science
Foundation (ESF) through a European
Commission contract.
COST provides a platform for European scientists to cooperate on a particular project and exchange expertise.
These projects, called COST Actions,
increase the mobility of researchers
across Europe and foster the establishment of scientific excellence in the nine
key domains.
As Director, Dr Dietl will support
the COST Committee of Senior Officials (CSO), the decision-making body
of the programme with representatives
from the 36 COST countries, with the
implementation of new research networks (called COST Actions) as well as
strategic matters. She will also support
the ESF in its capacity of implementing
agent of COST activities.
Dr Dietl joins COST from the French
National Research Centre (CNRS),
where she was representative and Director of its Brussels office. Previously
she worked as policy officer at the European Commission, Directorate General
for Research, where she contributed to
the preparation of the 7th Framework
Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7) “Ideas” programme and to the setting up of the European Research Council. Prior to that
she was responsible for European and
industrial partnerships in the CNRS life
sciences department.
“COST plays an important role in
the European Research Area and I am
excited to be joining the organisation”,
said Dr Dietl. “As a researcher with experience in and with private and public
institutions, I believe that its bottom-up
approach gives COST a unique experience in linking research and innovation
through scientific, often interdisciplinary,
research performance which is of signifi-
cant added value in shaping the European research landscape”.
“Dr Dietl does indeed join us at a
very important time for the programme”,
adds Dr Ángeles Rodríguez-Peña,
COST CSO President. “For COST, 2011
is not only the halfway point of FP7 but
also the year to highlight our 40 years
of existence with an eye towards defining our contribution to the Europe 2020
strategy. The COST Office is the backbone of COST’s structure and I am glad
to have been able to attract someone of
her calibre to the important role of COST
Office Director”.
Dr Dietl is a biologist specialising in
neuroscience. She has carried out research at Université Paris VI ‘Pierre et
Marie Curie’, the Lainz Hospital in Vienna, Sandoz in Basel, and the Collège
de France in Paris. She has lived and
worked in a wide range countries and
multicultural environments, in both the
private and public sector.
ESF
Study on planet’s inner core
show it moving much slower than previously believed
New EU-funded research offers the
world an accurate estimate of the rotating speed of the Earth’s core, suggesting it is a lot slower than was previously believed. However, the core
continues to turn at faster rates than
the rest of the planet. Presented in the
journal Nature Geoscience, the findings
are an outcome of the EARTH CORE
STRUCTURE (‘Thermal and compositional state of the Earth’s inner core from
seismic free oscillations’) project, which
was funded with a European Research
Council (ERC) Starting Grant worth
EUR 1.2 million under the Seventh
Framework Programme (FP7). This inTHE EGGS
22
formation will allow the correction of the
values usually used in models, which
were previously considered to be higher
rates of rotation movements of the core.
If the models were based on wrong assumptions, all the previous calculations
would need to be corrected on the basis
of this new knowledge and data.
back to contents
Researchers from the University of
Cambridge, UK say earlier estimates
that the core is rotating one degree a
year faster than the rest of the planet
were really off the mark. Based on their
data, the core is actually moving at
around one degree faster every million
years. The team calculated the rotation
rate from the shift of the core boundaries and the growth rate of the inner core.
Research leader Lauren Waszek,
a PhD student from the Department
of Earth Sciences at Cambridge, said:
‘The faster rotation rates are incompatible with the observed hemispheres in
the inner core because it would not allow enough time for the differences to
freeze into the structure. This has previously been a major problem, as the two
properties cannot co-exist. However,
we derived the rotation rates from the
evolution of the hemispherical structure,
and thus our study is the first in which
the hemispheres and rotation are inherently compatible’.
Scientists know that the inner core
grows as material from the fluid outer
core solidifies onto its surface. When
this happens, say the researchers, an
east-west hemispherical difference in
velocity is frozen into the inner core’s
structure.
Using seismic body waves that pass
through the inner core, the team evaluated the difference between the time it
took those waves to travel with waves
that reflect from the planet’s inner core
surface. This helped them determine the
velocity structure of the uppermost 90
kilometres of the inner core. They used
Earth and its inner core.
Credit: Shutterstock
this information to establish the velocity
for the inner core’s east and west hemispheres.
‘The Earth’s solid core was first discovered by the observation of PKiKP, a
seismic wave that travels through the
mantle and outer core before reflecting
from the sharp inner core boundary’,
the authors write. Composed mostly of
iron, the inner core grows thanks to the
solidification of outer core material onto
the inner core boundary surface as the
planet cools. The outcome is an older
deeper structure.
‘Although the thermal history of the
inner core is debated, its uppermost
structure results from processes occurring in the recent past, of which we have
greatest understanding’, the researchers write. ‘This resulting time depth variation of the upper inner core is key to
investigating any changing environment
at the inner core boundary region associated with inner core super-rotation’.
Positioned at 5.200 kilometres beneath the surface of the Earth, the inner
core plays a huge role in the surface of
the planet. Heat released during the solidification — as the inner core grows —
fuels convection in the outer core’s fluid.
This convection is responsible for producing the planet’s geomagnetic field,
which in turn keeps us safe from solar
radiation and ultimately ensures life on
Earth.
‘This result is the first observation
of such a slow inner core rotation rate’,
said Ms Waszek says. ‘It therefore provides a confirmed value which can now
be used in simulations to model the convection of Earth’s fluid outer core, giving
us additional insight into the evolution of
our magnetic field’.
Source: Research Headlines,
Original URL: http://ec.europa.
eu/research/headlines/news/article_11_03_03_en.html
Data from the Korean Geostationary GOCI Sensor
GOCI RGB and Level-1B full resolution images now Available
Data from the Korean Geostationary
Ocean Color Imager (GOCI) is now freely available. The Korea Ocean Satellite
Centre (KOSC) started distributing GOCI
data on 20 April 2011. They are currently producing GOCI RGB and Level-1B
full resolution images. You will need
to be a registered user to download the
data from the KOSC home page (http://
kosc.kordi.re.kr/index.kosc?lang=eng).
To register, click the “Join” button on the
KOSC home page and enter your personal details as well as a short proposal
(Introduction) outlining your planned research using GOCI data.
Currently GOCI data is available for
three time periods per day (11h, 12h,
13h local time) and will be extended to
the full service of 8 times per day in due
course.
The GOCI Data Processing System
(GDPS) is not yet available but the soft-
ware can nevertheless be downloaded
and used as viewing software.
KORDI would very much appreciate
receiving your feedback on their data
service e.g. data download speed, ease
of navigation on the homepage etc.
Please send your comments and suggestions to: Mr. Hee-Jeong Han (Email:
[email protected]).
New form of sulfur discovered in geological fluids
S3(-) ion
25 February 2011.- Sulfur is the
sixth most abundant element on Earth
and plays a key role in many geological
and biological processes. A French-Ger-
man team has identified, on the basis of
laboratory measurements, a novel form
of sulfur present in geological fluids: the
S3(-) ion. The discovery calls existing
THE EGGS
23
theories about the geological transport
of sulfur into question. The findings are
published in the 25 February 2011 issue
of the journal Science.
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Until now, it was believed that inside
the Earth, only two forms of molecules
contained sulfur: sulfides (based on H2S
or S(2-)) and sulfates (based on H2SO4
or SO4(2-)). The French-German team
first created fluids similar to those in the
Earth’s crust and mantle, i.e. aqueous
solutions containing elementary sulfur
(S) and thiosulfates (molecules containing the S2O3(2−) ion). They then used a
diamond anvil cell to bring the fluids to
the temperatures and pressures found
at depths of several kilometers.
The researchers used Raman spectroscopy to identify the chemical species, and they discovered not two, but
three forms of sulfur, the third being the
trisulfur ion S3(-). Although S3(-) was
already known to chemists (it is found
in sulfur-containing silicate glass and ultramarine pigments for instance), it had
never been observed in an aqueous solution.
The detection of S3(-) during these
experiments means that sulfur must be
considerably more mobile in hydrothermal fluids in the Earth’s crust than was
previously thought. This is because, unlike sulfides and sulfates, which attach
to minerals as soon as they appear in
fluids, S3(-) proves to be extremely stable in the aqueous phase. This chemical
species may therefore be the main metal transporting agent in two major types
of gold and copper deposits: Archaean
greenstone belts and subduction zone
magmas.
The presence of S3(-) in hydrothermal fluids could affect sulfur isotope
fractionation models, which until now
have taken no account of this chemical
species.
Reference:
The S3(-) Ion Is Stable in Geological Fluids at Elevated Temperatures and
Pressures. Gleb S. Pokrovski and Leonid S. Dubrovinsky. Science. 25 February 2011.
Predicting tsunamis in Europe
TRANSFER and SAFER projects
A tsunami could happen on Europe’s
coasts, with the eastern Mediterranean
being particularly vulnerable. The Mediterranean region has already been a
victim of tsunamis in the past and there
is every reason to believe that others
will occur in the future. The TRANSFER
and SAFER projects, supported by the
European Commission under the Sixth
Framework Programme for Research &
Development, aim to contribute to understanding of tsunami processes in the
Mediterranean and to develop an early
warning system similar to the one used
for the Pacific.
TRANSFER simulates tsunamis and
develops programmes to analyse the
risks to vulnerable coastal areas. The
simulations give insight into the strength
of waves and consequently allow predictions as to which coastal buildings
and infrastructures might be able to
stand up to them.
The SAFER project aims to develop
an early warning system to guarantee
the protection of civil populations. Indeed, timely warnings enable people to
take shelter and might even help prevent a devastating death toll.
Research on tsunamis is still immature. Although seismic activity has been
taking place for thousands of years, observation of these phenomena has only
been in place for around a century.
Documentation
* The TRANSFER Project (http://
www.transferproject.eu/)
* The SAFER project (http://www.
saferproject.net/)
Pathway for mercury to enter the atmosphere
through bromine induced oxidation
27/2/2011.- Prof. Menachem Luria
from the Fredy and Nadine Herrmann
Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University and Dr. Daniel Obrist
of the University of Nevada, found that
“passive” mercury normally found in the
atmosphere is converted into an “active”, oxidized form in the presence of
bromine.
The air over the Dead Sea was chosen for the experiments on mercury oxidation – even though it does not contain
any fish – since it has unusually high
levels of bromine that is emitted from the
surface into the atmosphere, converting
the mercury there into the oxidized mercury.
“In the world generally, the amount
of oxidized mercury in the atmosphere
constitutes about one percent of all the
mercury in the atmosphere”, said Prof.
Luria, “while above the Dead Sea the
oxidized mercury often amounts up to
about 50 percent”.
In fact, the bromine in the air over
the Dead Sea is 200 times greater than
over other bodies of water, say the researchers, due not only to the high level
of bromine present on the surface but
also to the high rate of its evaporation
into the atmosphere because of the very
high temperatures there.
Although health officials in the world
have issued warnings from time to time
about the danger of mercury found in
fish, the process by which the inactive
mercury is converted into the active,
oxidized form was previously unknown.
THE EGGS
24
The current research has now revealed
how this occurs, with the resultant introduction of this dangerous, active form
of mercury into the fish food chain and
ultimately into humans through the consumption of sea food.
Reference
1.Bromine-induced oxidation of mercury in the mid-latitude atmosphere.
Daniel Obrist, Eran Tas, Mordechai
Peleg, Valeri Matveev, Xavier Faïn, David Asaf, Menachem Luria. Nature Geoscience 4, 22-26 (28 November 2010)
doi:10.1038/ngeo1018 Letter
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Global fungal spore emissions
review and synthesis of literature data
The present paper summarizes fungal spore emission fluxes in different biomes. A literature study has been conducted
and emission fluxes have been calculated based on 35 fungal
spore concentration datasets. Biome area data has been derived from the World Resource Institute. Several assumptions
and simplifications needed to be adopted while aggregating
the data: results from different measurement methods have
been treated equally, while diurnal and seasonal cycles have
been neglected. Moreover flux data were aggregated to very
coarse biome areas due to scarcity of data. Results show number fluxes per square meter and second of 194 for tropical and
subtropical forests, 203 for all other forests, 1203 for shrub,
2509 for crop, 8 for tundra, and 165 for grassland. No data
were found for land ice. The annual mean global fluxes amount
to 1.69 × 10–11 kg m−2 s−1 as the best estimates, and 9.01 ×
10–12 kg m−2 s−1 and 3.28 × 10–11 kg m−2 s−1 as the low
and high estimate, respectively.
The full paper is available free of charge at http://www.biogeosciences.net/8/1181/2011/bg-8-1181-2011.pdf
Sesartic, A. and Dallafior, T. N.: Global fungal spore
emissions, review and synthesis of literature data, Biogeosciences, 8, 1181-1192, doi:10.5194/bg-8-1181-2011,
2011.
Worldwide trend of atmospheric mercury since 1995
substantial reduction of the atmospheric mercury burden since 1996 at odds
with the current mercury emission inventories
reservoirs. Decreasing reemissions from the legacy of historical mercury emissions are the most likely explanation for this
decline since the hypothesis of an accelerated oxidation rate of
elemental mercury in the atmosphere is not supported by the
observed trends of other trace gases. Acidification of oceans,
climate change, excess nutrient input and pollution may also
contribute by their impact on the biogeochemistry of ocean and
soils. Consequently, models of the atmospheric mercury cycle
have to include soil and ocean mercury pools and their dynamics to be able to make projections of future trends.
The full paper is available free of charge at http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/4779/2011/acp-11-4779-2011.pdf
Concern about the adverse effects of mercury on human
health and ecosystems has led to tightening emission controls
since the mid 1980s. But the resulting mercury emissions reductions in many parts of the world are believed to be offset or
even surpassed by the increasing emissions in rapidly industrializing countries. Consequently, concentrations of atmospheric
mercury are expected to remain roughly constant.
Here the authors show that the worldwide atmospheric
mercury concentrations have decreased by about 20 to 38 %
since 1996 as indicated by long-term monitoring at stations in
the Southern and Northern Hemispheres combined with intermittent measurements of latitudinal distribution over the Atlantic Ocean. The total reduction of the atmospheric mercury burden of this magnitude within 14 years is unusually large among
most atmospheric trace gases and is at odds with the current
mercury emission inventories with nearly constant anthropogenic emissions over this period. This suggests a major shift in
the biogeochemical cycle of mercury including oceans and soil
Slemr, F., Brunke, E.-G., Ebinghaus, R., and Kuss, J.:
Worldwide trend of atmospheric mercury since 1995,
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 4779-4787, doi:10.5194/acp-114779-2011, 2011.
Resurrecting the dead-water phenomenon
described in the PhD thesis of Ekman in 1904
requires more analysis, taking into account nonlinear effects.
The full paper is available free of charge at http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/18/193/2011/npg-18-193-2011.pdf
The authors revisit experimental studies performed by Ekman on dead-water (Ekman, 1904) using modern techniques
in order to present new insights on this phenomenon. For
sailors, the dead-water phenomenon is a well-known peculiar
phenomenon, when a boat evolving on a two-layer fluid feels
an extra drag due to waves being generated at the interface
between the two layers whereas the free surface remains still.
The authors extend its description to more general situations such as a three-layer fluid or a linearly stratified fluid in
presence of a pycnocline, showing the robustness of deadwater phenomenon. They observe large amplitude nonlinear
internal waves which are coupled to the boat dynamics, and
they emphasize that the modeling of the wave-induced drag
THE EGGS
Reference
Ekman, V. W.: On dead water, Norw. N. Polar Exped.
1893–1896: Sci. Results, XV, Christiana, Ph.D. thesis, 1904.
Mercier, M. J., Vasseur, R., and Dauxois, T.: Resurrecting dead-water phenomenon, Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 18, 193-208, doi:10.5194/npg-18-193-2011, 2011.
25
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Thermodynamic dissipation theory for the origin of life
mechanism is proposed for the reproduction of RNA and DNA promoted through UV light
dissipation and diurnal temperature cycling without the need for enzymes
Understanding the thermodynamic function of life may
shed light on its origin. Life, as are all irreversible processes,
is contingent on entropy production. Entropy production is
a measure of the rate of the tendency of Nature to explore
available microstates. The most important irreversible process
generating entropy in the biosphere and, thus, facilitating this
exploration, is the absorption and transformation of sunlight
into heat.
Here the authors hypothesize that life began, and persists
today, as a catalyst for the absorption and dissipation of sunlight on the surface of Archean seas. The resulting heat could
then be efficiently harvested by other irreversible processes
such as the water cycle, hurricanes, and ocean and wind currents. RNA and DNA are the most efficient of all known molecules for absorbing the intense ultraviolet light that penetrated
the dense early atmosphere and are remarkably rapid in trans-
forming this light into heat in the presence of liquid water. From
this perspective, the origin and evolution of life, inseparable
from water and the water cycle, can be understood as resulting from the natural thermodynamic imperative of increasing
the entropy production of the Earth in its interaction with its
solar environment. A mechanism is proposed for the reproduction of RNA and DNA without the need for enzymes, promoted
instead through UV light dissipation and diurnal temperature
cycling of the Archean sea-surface.
The full paper is available free of charge at http://www.
earth-syst-dynam.net/2/37/2011/esd-2-37-2011.pdf
Michaelian, K.: Thermodynamic dissipation theory
for the origin of life, Earth Syst. Dynam., 2, 37-51,
doi:10.5194/esd-2-37-2011, 2011.
Atmospheric new particle formation
real and apparent growth of neutral and charged particles
a factor of ~1.5 to 2. In case of increased condensation onto
charged particles, the total condensational growth rate of a
nucleation mode may increase significantly in the very early
steps of the growth. The analytical formulae provided by this
paper were designed to provide the growth rates due to different processes from aerosol dynamic simulations, but the
same principles can be used to determine the growth rates
from measurement data.
The full paper is available free of charge at http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/4939/2011/acp-11-4939-2011.pdf
In this study the authors have provided simple analytical
formulae to estimate the growth rate of a nucleation mode
due to self-coagulation and the apparent growth rate due to
coagulation scavenging by larger particles. These formulae
were used on a set of simulations covering a wide range of
atmospheric conditions. The modal growth rates were determined from the simulation results by summing the contribution
of each process, by calculating the increase rate in the count
mean diameter of the mode and by following the peak concentration of the mode. The results of these three methods were
compared with each other and the means used to estimate the
growth rate due to self-coagulation and coagulation scavenging were found to give accurate values.
The authors also investigated the role of charged particles
and electric interactions in the growth of a nucleation mode.
Charged particles were found to increase the growth rate
due to both self-coagulation and coagulation scavenging by
Leppä, J., Anttila, T., Kerminen, V.-M., Kulmala, M., and
Lehtinen, K. E. J.: Atmospheric new particle formation:
real and apparent growth of neutral and charged particles, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 4939-4955, doi:10.5194/
acp-11-4939-2011, 2011.
Medusa-1.0: a new intermediate complexity plankton
ecosystem model for the global domain
state variables, differential equations, functional forms and parameter values is included,
with particular attention on the submodel for the export of organic carbon
The ongoing, anthropogenically-driven changes to the
global ocean are expected to have significant consequences
for plankton ecosystems in the future. Because of the role that
plankton play in the ocean’s “biological pump”, changes in
abundance, distribution and productivity will likely have additional consequences for the wider carbon cycle. Just as in the
terrestrial biosphere, marine ecosystems exhibit marked diverTHE EGGS
sity in species and functional types of organisms. Predicting
potential change in plankton ecosystems therefore requires
the use of models that are suited to this diversity, but whose
parameterisation also permits robust and realistic functional
behaviour.
In the past decade, advances in model sophistication have
attempted to address diversity, but have been criticised for
26
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particular attention focused on the submodel describing the
export of organic carbon from the surface to the deep ocean.
MEDUSA-1.0 is used here in a multi-decadal hindcast simulation, and its biogeochemical performance evaluated at the
global scale.
The full paper is available free of charge at http://www.
geosci-model-dev.net/4/381/2011/gmd-4-381-2011.pdf
doing so inaccurately or ahead of a requisite understanding
of underlying processes. Here the authors introduce MEDUSA-1.0 (Model of Ecosystem Dynamics, nutrient Utilisation,
Sequestration and Acidification), a new “intermediate complexity” plankton ecosystem model that expands on traditional
nutrient-phytoplankton-zooplankton-detritus (NPZD) models,
and remains amenable to global-scale evaluation. MEDUSA-1.0 includes the biogeochemical cycles of nitrogen, silicon
and iron, broadly structured into “small” and “large” plankton
size classes, of which the “large” phytoplankton class is representative of a key phytoplankton group, the diatoms. A full
description of MEDUSA-1.0’s state variables, differential equations, functional forms and parameter values is included, with
Yool, A., Popova, E. E., and Anderson, T. R.: Medusa-1.0: a new intermediate complexity plankton ecosystem model for the global domain, Geosci. Model Dev., 4,
381-417, doi:10.5194/gmd-4-381-2011, 2011.
The global ocean circulation on a retrograde rotating earth
used to study the surface freshwater flux impact on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation asymmetry
To understand the three-dimensional ocean circulation patterns that have occurred in past continental geometries, it is
crucial to study the role of the present-day continental geometry and surface (wind stress and buoyancy) forcing on the
present-day global ocean circulation. This circulation, often referred to as the Conveyor state, is characterised by an Atlantic
Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) with a deep water
formation at northern latitudes and the absence of such a deep
water formation in the North Pacific. This MOC asymmetry is
often attributed to the difference in surface freshwater flux: the
Atlantic as a whole is a basin with net evaporation, while the
Pacific receives net precipitation.
This issue is revisited in this paper by considering the global ocean circulation on a retrograde rotating earth, computing
an equilibrium state of the coupled atmosphere-ocean-land
surface-sea ice model CCSM3. The Atlantic-Pacific asymmetry in surface freshwater flux is indeed reversed, but the ocean
circulation pattern is not an Inverse Conveyor state (with deep
water formation in the North Pacific) as there is relatively weak
but intermittently strong deep water formation in the North Atlantic. Using a fully-implicit, global ocean-only model the stability properties of the Atlantic MOC on a retrograde rotating
earth are also investigated, showing a similar regime of multiple equilibria as in the present-day case.
These results indicate that the present-day asymmetry in
surface freshwater flux is not the most important factor setting
the Atlantic-Pacific salinity difference and, thereby, the asymmetry in the global MOC.
The full paper is available free of charge at http://www.climpast.net/7/487/2011/cp-7-487-2011.pdf
Kamphuis, V., Huisman, S. E., and Dijkstra, H. A.: The
global ocean circulation on a retrograde rotating earth,
Clim. Past, 7, 487-499, doi:10.5194/cp-7-487-2011, 2011.
Imaggeo is the online open access geosciences image repository of the European Geosciences
Union. Every geoscientist who is an amateur photographer (but also other people) can submit their
images to this repository.
Being open access, images from Imaggeo can be used by scientists for their presentations or
publications as well as by the press.
If you submit your images to imaggeo, you retain full rights of use, since they are licenced and
distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.
www.imaggeo.net
THE EGGS
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Evolution and Biodiversity GIFT Workshop
during the last General Assembly
At this year’s EGU General Assembly (Vienna, 3-8 April,
2011)80 teachers from 19 different countries have participated
this year to the GIFT Workshop «Evolution and Biodiversity».
Only the main aspects of the study of Evolution have been
addressed during the two and a half days dedicated to the
workshop:
- the geological point of view
- the molecular genetics aspects
- the possible influence of « external » factors such as an
impact by a meteorite or huge volcanic eruptions
- the aspects of recent human evolution.
Two «round table discussions» have been scheduled at the
end of each day, one focussed on Evolution, the second one
on Biodiversity.
As part of GIFT an Educational Poster Session has also
been organized, “Science in tomorrow’s classroom”, specifi-
cally to allow the teachers to show their classroom activities,
not only to their fellow teachers, but also to all the participants
of the EGU General Assembly.
To encourage communication among teachers, we have
included some “teacher-to-teachers” communications in the
program, one on a classroom activity (Phylogen), a second
on the Earth Sciences Olympiads for teachers in 2011, and a
third about a new web site specifically aimed at making connections among GIFT teachers. Finally, an entire morning has
been dedicated to hands-on activities led by a science communicator.
A 78-page brochure on the Workshop can be downloaded
at http://www.egu.eu/fileadmin/files/GIFT/gift_brochure_2011.
pdf
EGU Office
EIROforum teachers school
ropean Molecular Biology Laboratory, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, the Institute Laue-Langevin and the European X-ray Free Electron Laser.
There are no course fees, and accommodation and food
are provided free. Travel costs up to 400 EUR will be covered
for the participants.
To apply, visit http://tinyurl.com/eiroschool and upload your
CV and an application letter. The deadline is 15 May 2011.
Many of you may be interested in the forthcoming teacher
workshop given by EIROforum, the publisher of Science in
School. The deadline for applications is fast approaching, so
you will need to apply soon.
This free, three-day course is entitled ‘Physics and chemistry of life’ and is open to European science teachers. It will take
place at the European Photon and Neutron Science Campus
in Grenoble, France, from 9-12 October 2011.
Participants will attend a series of short lectures and laboratory tutorials in small groups. Time slots are reserved for participants to exchange classroom experience, and for visits to
the research laboratories.
The course lectures, tutorials and practicals will be given
by top scientists from four of the EIROforum members: the Eu-
THE EGGS
Eleanor Hayes
Editor-in-Chief of Science in School
[email protected]
http://www.scienceinschool.org
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Forests, Water and People in the Humid Tropics
Authors: Agustin Sanchez-Lavega
Publisher: CRC Press (Taylor &
Francis Group)
ISBN: 9781420067323
YEAR : 2010
EDITION : 1st
PAGES : 587
PRICE : 64.00 €
Hardback
Planetary atmospheres is a relatively new, interdisciplinary subject that incorporates various areas of the physical and
chemical sciences, including geophysics, geophysical fluid
dynamics, atmospheric science, astronomy, and astrophysics. Providing a much-needed resource for this cross-disciplinary field, An Introduction to Planetary Atmospheres presents current knowledge on atmospheres and the fundamental
mechanisms operating on them. The author treats the topics
in a comparative manner among the different solar system
bodies—what is known as comparative planetology. Based
on an established course, this comprehensive text covers a
panorama of solar system bodies and their relevant general
properties. It explores the origin and evolution of atmospheres,
along with their chemical composition and thermal structure. It
also describes cloud formation and properties, mechanisms in
thin and upper atmospheres, and meteorology and dynamics.
Each chapter focuses on these atmospheric topics in the way
classically done for the Earth’s atmosphere and summarizes
the most important aspects in the field. The study of planetary
atmospheres is fundamental to understanding the origin of the
solar system, the formation mechanisms of planets and satellites, and the day-to-day behavior and evolution of Earth’s
atmosphere. With many interesting real-world examples, this
book offers a unified vision of the chemical and physical processes occurring in planetary atmospheres.
Atmospheric Dynamics
Authors: Mankin Mak
Publisher: Cambridge University
Press
ISBN: 9780521195737
YEAR : 2011
EDITION : 1st
PAGES : 486
PRICE : 39.70 €
Hardback
THE EGGS
Atmospheric dynamics is a core component of all atmospheric science curricula. It is concerned with how and why different classes of geophysical disturbances form, what dictates
their structure and movement, how the Earth’s uneven surface
impacts with them, how they evolve to mature stage, how they
interact with the background flow, how they decay and how
they collectively constrain the general circulation of the atmosphere. Mankin Mak’s new textbook provides a self-contained
course on atmospheric dynamics. The first half of the book is
suitable for undergraduates, and develops the physical, dynamical and mathematical concepts at the fundamental level.
The second half of the book is aimed at more advanced students who are already familiar with the basics. The contents
have been developed from many years of the author’s teaching at the University of Illinois. The discussions are supplemented with schematics, weather maps and statistical plots
of the atmospheric general circulation. Students often find the
connection between theoretical dynamics and atmospheric
observation somewhat tenuous, and this book demonstrates
a strong connection between the key dynamics and real observations in the atmosphere, with many illustrative analyses
in the simplest possible model settings. Physical reasoning is
shown to be even more crucial than mathematical skill in tackling dynamical problems. This textbook is an invaluable asset
for courses in atmospheric dynamics for undergraduates as
well as for graduate students and researchers in atmospheric
science, ocean science, weather forecasting, environmental
science and applied mathematics. Some background in mathematics and physics is assumed.
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Cold-Water Corals
Authors: J. Murray Roberts, Andrew J. Wheeler, André Freiwald
and Stephen D. Cairns
Publisher: Cambridge University
Press
ISBN: 9780521884853
YEAR : 2009
EDITION : 1st
PAGES : 352
PRICE : 93.00 €
Hardback
There are more coral species in deep, cold waters than in
tropical coral reefs. This broad-ranging treatment is the first to
synthesise current understanding of all types of cold-water coral, covering their ecology, biology, palaeontology and geology.
Beginning with a history of research in the field, the authors
describe the approaches needed to study corals in the deep
sea. They consider coral habitats created by stony scleractinian as well as octocoral species. The importance of corals as
long-lived geological structures and palaeoclimate archives is
discussed, in addition to ways in which they can be conserved.
Topic boxes explain unfamiliar concepts, and case studies
summarise significant studies, coral habitats or particular conservation measures. Written for professionals and students of
marine science, this text is enhanced by an extensive glossary,
online resources (www.lophelia.org/coldwatercoralsbook), and
a unique collection of colour photographs and illustrations of
corals and the habitats they form.
Ocean Acidification
Authors: Jean-Pierre Gattuso and
Lina Hansson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199591084
YEAR : 2011
EDITION : 1st
PAGES : 368
PRICE : 85.00 €
Hardback
THE EGGS
This book:
•Synthesizes the findings of recent national and international research efforts, including those of EPOCA (European
Project on Ocean Acidification), set in a broader global context.
•Reviews our current knowledge of the chemical, biological, biogeochemical, and societal implications of ocean acidification, with a particular emphasis on its impact on marine
organisms and ecosystems.
•Assesses the uncertainties, risks, and thresholds related
to ocean acidification at molecular, cellular, organismal, local,
and global scales. The ocean helps moderate climate change
thanks to its considerable capacity to store CO2, through the
combined actions of ocean physics, chemistry, and biology.
This storage capacity limits the amount of human-released
CO2 remaining in the atmosphere. As CO2 reacts with seawater, it generates dramatic changes in carbonate chemistry,
including decreases in pH and carbonate ions and an increase
in bicarbonate ions. The consequences of this overall process,
known as “ocean acidification”, are raising concerns for the
biological, ecological, and biogeochemical health of the world’s
oceans, as well as for the potential societal implications. This
research level text is the first to synthesize the very latest understanding of the consequences of ocean acidification, with
the intention of informing both future research agendas and
marine management policy. A prestigious list of authors has
been assembled, among them the coordinators of major national and international projects on ocean acidification.
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River Discharge to the Coastal Ocean
Authors: John D. Milliman and
Katherine L. Farnsworth
Publisher: Cambridge University
Press
ISBN: 9780521879873
YEAR : 2011
EDITION : 1st
PAGES : 384
PRICE : 113.80 €
Hardback
Rivers provide the primary link between land and sea, historically discharging annually about 36000 km3 of freshwater
and more than 20 billion tons of solid and dissolved sediments
to the global ocean. Together with tides, winds, waves, currents, and geology, rivers play a major role in determining the
estuarine and coastal environment. The movement of freshwater and the distribution of river-derived sediments to the ocean
have fundamental impacts on a wide variety of coastal environments, ranging from the Mississippi and Nile deltas, to coastal
Siberia, to the Indonesian archipelago. Utilizing the world’s
largest database – 1534 rivers that drain more than 85% of
the landmass discharging into the global ocean – this book
presents a detailed analysis and synthesis of the processes affecting the fluvial discharge of water, sediment, and dissolved
solids. The ways in which climatic variation, episodic events,
and anthropogenic activities – past, present, and future – affect the quantity and quality of river discharge are discussed in
the final two chapters. The book contains more than 165 figures – many in full color – including global and regional maps.
An extensive appendix presents the 1534-river database as a
series of 44 tables that provide quantitative data regarding the
discharge of water, sediment and dissolved solids. The appendix’s 140 maps portray the morphologic, geologic, and climatic
character of the watersheds. The complete database is also
presented within a GIS-based package.
Rock Fractures in Geological Processes
Authors: Agust Gudmundsson
Publisher: Cambridge University
Press
ISBN: 9780521863926
YEAR : 2011
EDITION : 1st
PAGES : 578
PRICE : 52.00 €
Hardback
THE EGGS
Rock fractures control many of Earth’s dynamic processes, including plate-boundary development, tectonic earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and fluid transport in the crust.
An understanding of rock fractures is also essential for effective exploitation of natural resources such as ground water,
geothermal water, and petroleum. This book combines results
from fracture mechanics, materials science, rock mechanics,
structural geology, hydrogeology, and fluid mechanics to explore and explain fracture processes and fluid transport in the
crust. Basic concepts are developed from first principles and
illustrated with worked examples linking models of geological
processes to real field observations and measurements. Many
additional examples and exercises are provided online, allowing readers to practise formulating and quantitative testing of
models. Rock Fractures in Geological Processes is designed
for courses at the advanced undergraduate and graduate level
but also forms a vital resource for researchers and industry
professionals concerned with fractures and fluid transport in
the Earth’s crust.
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Joint Training Course on Remote Sensing
Data Analysis - Course
Contact:
Elena Popa ([email protected]); Alex Vermeulen
([email protected]).
Οrganizer:
TTORCH (Tall Tower and surface Observation Research
Network for verification of Climate relevant emissions of Human origin in Europe) is an ESF Research Networking Programme focusing on measurements and modelling of nonCO2 greenhouse gases (CH4, N2O, SF6) and related tracers
(e.g., CO, H2, 14CO2, O2/N2). The main purpose of TTORCH
is to support and help improve the European network of observations of greenhouse gases through communication, workshops, grants for exchange visits and summer schools.
http://www.ttorch.org/
Elena Popa
08/10/2011 - 12/10/2011 - Vladivostok, Russia
In collaboration with the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) and IOC Sub-Commission for the Western
Pacific (WESTPAC), the Special Monitoring & Coastal Environmental Assessment Regional Activity Centre (CEARAC),
one of the four Regional Activity Centres of the Northwest Pacific Action Plan (NOWPAP), will conduct an intensive training
course at V.I. Il’ichev Pacific Oceanological Institute in Vladivostok, Russia from October 8-12, 2011 on the analysis of remote
sensing data, with a focus on the Northwest Pacific Ocean.
The course will consist of lectures by experts and hands-on tutorial sessions on analysis of satellite data. This training course
aims at providing opportunities for students, young researchers and coastal managers to obtain useful skills and knowledge to utilize remote sensing data to monitor and assess the
coastal and marine environment.
Submission deadline is June 30, 2011.
Successful applicants will be notified by the end of July,
2011.
Please see the 1st Announcement (http://cearac.nowpap.
org/monitoring/3rdRST/1st_Announcement.html) for further
details. The IOCCG is a co-sponsor of this training course.
Οrganizer:
V.I.Il’ichev Pacific Oceanological Institute
http://cearac.nowpap.org/monitoring/3rdRST/1st_Announcement.html
13th Plinius Conference on Mediterranean
Storms - Meeting
07/09/2011 - 09/09/2011 - Savona, Italy
Since its first edition, in 1999, the Plinius Conference on
Mediterranean Storms has provided a crucial interdisciplinary contribution for improving our understanding of hazardous
weather-related storms of over the Mediterranean basin.
The objective of the 2011 edition of the Conference, the
13th of the series, is to provide an interdisciplinary forum for
presentations and discussions of our current state of knowledge, as well as motivating new research and applications
within the variety of disciplines related to Mediterranean storms
and their impacts on people.
Over these last 13 years, the scientific community that contributes to the conference has achieved enormous success in
the understanding of many of the scientific aspects of Mediterranean storms. The conference has undoubtedly helped
to increase the knowledge about the causes, to improve the
modeling and prediction capabilities, to identify the sources
of uncertainty, to improve the observation and management
of weather-related disasters in the Mediterranean area. This
achievement was undoubtedly due to the inter-disciplinary
nature of the conference. We strongly encourage and support then the participation of experts in different disciplines,
including: meteorology, climatology, oceanography, hydrology,
geology, sociology, economics, ICT, decision-making. Experts
from these disciplines will be able to present their own unique
perspectives on how to understand and manage storm-related
disasters across the Mediterranean basin.
The conference will cover a wide range of topics related to
extreme events in the Mediterranean, including: (i) the causes
and physics of extreme events; (ii) the possible changes in
behavior of extremes resulting from climate change; (iii) advanced techniques of observation; (iv) modeling and forecasting techniques; (v) social impact, information dissemination,
sustainable development and emergency management.
Issues to be addressed by the 13th Plinius Conference on
Mediterranean Storms will generally fit within one of the following topic areas:
Topic 1: Societal impacts of Mediterranean Storms
Topic 2: Monitoring of Mediterranean Storms
Topic 3: Diagnosis and Forecasting of Mediterranean Storms
TTORCH Summer school 2011 - Course
27/09/2011 - 04/10/2011 - Hyytiala,
Forestry Field Station, Finland
The first TTORCH Summer School will take place between
27 September and 4 October 2011 at Hyytiala Forestry Field
Station, in Finland. Local hosts are Timo Vesala and Ivan
Mammarella.
The school will be organized in three sections: Atmospheric composition, Atmospheric measurements and Atmospheric
modeling. The last two sections will each include a practical
session.
Lecturers include: Christoph Gerbig, Martin Heimann,
Sander Houweling, Jürgen Kesselmeier, Maarten Krol, Ingeborg Levin, Anders Lindroth, John Moncrieff, Xavier Rodo and
Timo Vesala.
The school is mainly oriented to PhD students, but a number of PostDocs and master students preparing to start a Doctorate will be accepted.
For application, the candidate should prepare a document
containing the CV, a short description of her/his work and a
recommendation letter of the supervisor. The selection will
take into account the connection between the candidate’s research subject and the TTORCH focus.
Most of the costs (accommodation, catering, organization
and lectures) will be covered from TTORCH funds. The students will have to pay themselves the travel costs only.
Please visit www.ttorch.org for more information.
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Topic 4: Hydrometeorology and hydrology of Mediterranean Storms
Topic 5: Mediterranean hazards of different origin
Along with the conference meetings of international projects focused on topics related to the objectives of the conference will be organized, in order to give opportunity for wider
audience to get in touch with the scientific communities that
manage these projects.
Οrganizer:
EGU Topical Conference Series
http://meetings.copernicus.org/plinius13/home.html
Following CAREX’s approach to research on life in extreme environment, the conference will be a truly interdisciplinary event. Oral presentations and posters will consider microbes, plants and animals evolving in various marine, polar,
terrestrial extreme environments as well as outer space. It will
be a unique opportunity to network and elaborate on crossdisciplinary scientific challenges.
The programme Committee expects participation from
around 150 European and international scientists.
This conference and the call for papers will be structured
around five overarching themes:
· Stressful environments - responses, adaptation and evolution
· Biodiversity, bioenergetics and interactions in extreme environments
· Contributions of life in extreme environments to biogeochemical cycles and
responses to environmental change
· Life and habitability
· Technology Development
Abstract Submission Deadline: 29 April 2011
A limited number of grants will be available for early career
scientists (PhD students and Postdocs).
http://www.carex-eu.org/activities/carex-conference-onlife-in-extreme-environments.html
Abstract submission - Earth Observation
for Ocean-Atmosphere Interactions Meeting
29/11/2011 - 02/12/2011 - Frascati (Rome), Italy
This is to inform you that abstract submission is now open
for the topical conference on Earth Observation for Ocean-Atmosphere Interactions Science that will take place at the ESA
premises of ESRIN in Frascati (Rome), Italy from 29 November – 2 December 2011.
Contributions are invited for oral and poster presentations
on novel research activities and developments exploiting EO
data in support to ocean-atmosphere interaction studies.
The deadline for abstract submission is 29 April 2011.
For detailed information about organization, abstract submission (plain text, max 5000 characters) and registration,
please visit the conference website: http://www.eo4oceanatmosphere.info/.
Many thanks in advance for your contribution and best regards.
Οrganizer:
ESA Conference Bureau on behalf of the Organising Committee:
- Bernard Barnier (University of Grenoble, France, EGU
Ocean Sciences)
- Craig Donlon (ESA-ESTEC, the Netherlands)
- Diego Fernández Prieto (ESA-ESRIN, Italy)
- Christoph Garbe (University of Heidelberg, Germany, SOLAS SSC)
- Simon Pinnock (ESA-ESRIN, Italy)
- Roberto Sabia (ESA-ESRIN, Italy)
- Brian Ward (NUIG, Ireland, SOLAS SSC)
http://www.eo4oceanatmosphere.info/
WCRP OSC Climate Research in Service
to Society - Meeting
24/10/2011 - 28/10/2011 - Denver, CO, USA
The WCRP OSC represents an exclusive opportunity to
assemble the international scientific community working to advance understanding and prediction of variability and change
of the Earth’s physical climate system on all space and time
scales. The OSC will facilitate cross-fertilization across the diverse research communities within the WCRP, as well as with
other international research programmes, including the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the World
Weather Research Programme (WWRP) and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP).
The OSC will appraise the current state of climate science,
thereby making a measurable contribution on the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC). It will identify key opportunities and challenges in observations, modeling, analysis and process research
required to understand and predict responses of the Earth as
a system.
By entraining as many young scientists and students as
possible from across the world, including less-developed and
developing countries, the OSC will facilitate growth of the diverse future workforce needed to meet the increasingly complex scientific challenges of the future.
As part of WCRP’s ongoing commitment to education and
capacity development and to train the next generation of climate experts, travel grants are available to enable and support
participation of students, early career scientists and scientists
from developing countries to attend the conference.
Grants will be assigned based on financial need and scientific merit of proposed presentation described in the abstract,
CAREX Conference on Life in Extreme
Environments - Meeting
18/10/2011 - 20/10/2011 - Stillorgan Park Hotel, Dublin,
Ireland
Building up on the project’s activities and community, the
CAREX conference will be a key event on the European and
international scenes providing the opportunity to discuss and
present the state of the art and the latest developments on
research on life in extreme environments.
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16th Quaternary Research Association
Postgraduate Symposium - Meeting
contribution to conference and all supporting documents (see
below). Priority will be given to:
1) Students: those pursuing their graduate studies (MSc,
PhD)
2) Early Career Scientists: post-graduates and researchers
who received their highest degree in 2005 or later
3) Scientists from emerging and developing economies
30/08/2011 - 01/09/2011 - Durham, UK
The 16thQuaternary Research Association Postgraduate
Symposium will be held at the Department of Geography, Durham University, from 30th August - 1st September 2011. The
conference provides an opportunity for postgraduates to present their research and meet others in the field of Quaternary
science in a relaxed and friendly environment.
http://www.dur.ac.uk/
Full details can be found at
qrapg2011/
The conference will be structured around four main
themes: palaeoglaciology, sea-level change, palaeoclimatology and geoarchaeology/landscape evolution. Registration
and abstract submission are now open and will close on Friday
5th August.
Conference organisers:
Vicky Brown [email protected]
Ed Garrett [email protected]
http://www.dur.ac.uk/qrapg2011/
Grantees must attend the entire conference in order to
benefit from the financial support which includes total refund of
Abstract and Registration fees.
The deadline for applying for financial assistance has been
extended to 15 April 2011.
Individuals who wish to present their work at the WCRP
Open Science Conference are encouraged to submit an abstract of their presentation for review and selection by the
Programme Committee. Abstract Submissions will be used to
select presentations for poster and oral sessions. The selected
abstracts will be posted on the conference website. Poster
sessions will be the main form of presentation during the conference. The number of oral presentations is limited and only
a selected number of talks will be chosen for the three parallel
sessions planned for each day.
Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 May 2011.
http://www.wcrp-climate.org/conference2011/
Planet Under Pressure: New knowledge
towards solutions - Meeting
26/04/2012 - 29/04/2012 - London, UK
GwFR2012, International Conference
on Groundwater in Fractured Rocks Meeting
The 2012 international Planet Under Pressure conference
will provide a comprehensive update of the pressure planet
Earth is now under. The conference will discuss solutions at
all scales to move societies on to a sustainable pathway. It will
provide scientific leadership towards the 2012 UN Conference
on Sustainable Development - Rio+20.
Conference Themes
Three broad themes will guide the conference:
Meeting global needs: food, energy, water and other ecosystem services.
Transforming our way of living: development pathways under global environmental change.
Governing across scales: innovative stewardship of the
Earth system.
Key Aims
A state of the planet assessment and solutions for a sustainable future.
2500 participants combining global-change science and
policy, business and development communities.
Scientific leadership towards the 2012 UN Rio +20 conference.
Building trans-disciplinary research communities.
Identifying opportunities for enhanced partnerships between global change science and policy, industry and the public.
21/05/2012 - 24/05/2012 - Prague, Czech Republic
This conference focuses on the occurrence and properties of groundwaters in fractured rocks, nowadays the most
dynamic developing field in hydrogeology. These rocks exist
all over the world, but for a long time were much neglected
from the viewpoint of hydrogeology. European hydrogeologists
paid attention to the so-called hard rocks in developing countries of Africa where these rocks in many arid and semi-arid
areas were the only source of potable water. Hydrogeological
studies in temperate climatic zones were directed mostly at basinal structures. Only the last decade has shown that fractured
rocks represent in many respects attractive hydrogeological
environments, deserving attention.
Οrganizer:
1) International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH), IAH
Commission on Hydrogeology of Hard Rocks
2) IAH National Chapter of Czech Republic
3) International Association of Hydrological Sciences
(IAHS), International Commission on Groundwater
4) Institute of Hydrogeology, Engineering Geology and
Applied Geophysics, Faculty of Science, Charles University,
Prague, Czech Republic
5) T.G. Masaryk Water Research Institute (VÚV), Prague,
Czech Republic
http://web.natur.cuni.cz/gwfr2012/
A new vision for international research.
Building on a comprehensive update of knowledge of the
Earth system and the pressure it is under, the Planet Under
Pressure conference will present and debate new insights into
potential opportunities and constraints for innovative development pathways based on novel partnerships.
Karel Kovar, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, P.O. Box 303, 3720 AH Bilthoven, The Netherlands
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Abstracts will be invited for oral and poster presentation.
The abstracts submission facility will open in May following the
review for the Call for Sessions. The deadline for abstracts is:
19 August 2011.
Οrganizer:
International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (www.
igbp.net), DIVERSITAS (www.diversitas-international.org), In-
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ternational Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (www.ihdp.unu.edu), World Climate Research
Programme (www.wcrp-climate.org), Earth System Science
Partnership (www.essp.org).
http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net/
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Egg Weight determines the hatchability
Dear Colleague,
We received a manuscript Titled: Egg Weight, but not Egg Shape Index, Determines the
Hatchability in Japanase Quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica).
I wish to inquire if you can create time to review this manuscript and send it to us within two
weeks. Find below the Abstract:
This study was carried out to investigate the effect of egg shape index (SI) and egg weight
(EW) on hatchability parameters, hatching weight and weekly live weight in Japanese quails
( Coturnix coturnix japonica ). Quail eggs were divided into three groups according to their SI
(SI-1:<=% 76: SI-2:%77-78 and SI-3:>=%79) and into three groups according to their weight
(A1:<13.00 g, A2:13.01-14.00 g and A3:>=14.01 g) respectively. The mean values of hatching
weight were found as 8.41 g, 9.40 g, 10.27 g in A1, A2 and A3 egg weight groups and as 8.97 g,
9.37 g and 8.90 g in SI-1, SI-2 and SI-3 SI groups respectively. The differences between groups in
terms of these traits were statistically significant (P<0.01). The fertility rate was not affected significantly by egg weight. The hatchability of fertile eggs was not affected by (SI) groups but it was affected by egg weight groups (P<0.01). The highest hatchability of fertile eggs was observed in A1
group (%79.47) and this was followed by A2 (%78.67) and A3 (%74.86) groups. The difference in
hatchability between egg weight groups was statistically significant (P<0.01) and the mean value
of this trait in A3 group was lower (%64.31) than those in A1 (%72.12) and A2 (%70.45) groups.
The differences between SI groups in terms of hatchability of total eggs, embryonic mortality rates,
pipped and discarded chick rates were not statistically significant. The average body weights (BW)
for the first two weeks between egg weight groups were statistically significant (P<0.01), but these
differences were not statistically significant after three weeks of age.
Also attached is the full manuscript, Instruction for author and reviewer\’s guide.
BEST REGARDS,
PROF. N.A. AMUSA
EDITOR
AFRICAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH
HTTP://WWW.ACADEMICJOURNALS.ORG/AJAR
ISI indexed journal; Impact factor 0.080
We received this letter at the Editorial Office of The EGGS; unfortunately we could not accomodate this request. -Ed.
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ESA expands its Earth-exploring service
http://www.esa.int/miravi
3 May 2011.- Since 2006 ESA has been making satellite
images of Earth available to anyone. ESA has now added
nearly 13 000 radar images to the service, bringing the number
of viewing possibilities to about 58.000.
The MIRAVI service tracks ESA’s Envisat satellite around
the globe, generates images from the raw data collected by
its instruments and provides them online free of charge within
two hours.
“We have been very pleased with the number of people
using MIRAVI to explore our planet. This enthusiasm inspired
us to offer new images that provide different types of informa-
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tion”, said ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes
Volker Liebig.
Until recently, MIRAVI provided optical images from Envisat’s MERIS. To date, nearly 45 000 optical images have been
made available.
With the addition of radar images from the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar, it is now possible to observe oil spills,
ice-berg calving, flooding and sea ice.
To enjoy the service, visit the MIRAVI website.
ESA
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Atmospheric Sciences-Academic
Soil System Science-Academic
Faculty Position In Earth And Atmospheric Sciences
Assistant Professor in Soil Science
Company: Cornell University
Location: USA-Ithaca, New York
Date Posted: 20/04/2011
[show details...]
Company: University of Alberta - Renewable Resources
Location: Canada-Edmonton, Alberta
Date Posted: 10/06/2011
[show details...]
Ocean Sciences-Academic
Geodynamics and Seismology-Academic
Postdoc in ocean dynamics
Senior Researcher
Company: University of Brest
Location: France-Brest
Date Posted: 22/04/2011
[show details...]
Company: Institute for Landscape Ecology of the University of Münster
Location: Germany-Münster
Date Posted: 21/06/2011
[show details...]
Interdisciplinary / Other-Academic
General-Other
Directory, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER
Company: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at the
Columbia University Earth Institute
Location: United States-Palisades, New York
Date Posted: 26/04/2011
[show details...]
Company: EGU Executive Secretary and the EGU
Council
Location: Germany-Munich
Date Posted: 05/05/2011
[show details...]
Interdisciplinary / Other-Academic
Geodynamics and Seismology-Other
NERC/ESRC PhD-Studentship
Marie Curie PhD Position (TOPOMOD ESR10)
Company: King’s College London
Location: United Kngdom-London
Date Posted: 12/05/2011
[show details...]
Company: Institut de Ciencies de la Terra Jaume
Almera, ICTJA-CSIC
Location: Spain-Barcelona
Date Posted: 11/05/2011
[show details...]
Biogeosciences-Academic
Postdoc Stream biogeochemistry
Interdisciplinary / Other-Other
Company: University of Vienna
Location: Austria-Vienna
Date Posted: 05/06/2011
[show details...]
Marie Curie PhD Position (TOPOMOD ESR12)
Company: Institut de Ciencies de la Terra Jaume
Almera, ICTJA-CSIC
Location: Spain-Barcelona
Date Posted: 11/05/2011
[show details...]
Interdisciplinary / Other-Academic
Post-doc: Biological Response to Climate Change
Geodynamics and Seismology-Other
Company: The Ohio State University
Location: USA-Columbus, OH
Date Posted: 08/06/2011
[show details...]
Postdoctoral Research Fellow - Tropical Variability Dynamist
Company: CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation)
Location: Australia-Aspendale, Victoria
Date Posted: 19/05/2011
[show details...]
More details on these jobs can be found online at www.the-eggs.org (click on the button “Job Positions” on the left). Job positions online are
updated twice a week.
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